'The notion of a single unarmed town challenging the might of the People's Republic is a little absurd,' says Mihir Sharma.
'A unified Hindu votebank -- the creation of the largest and most reliable votebank in Indian politics, ever,' says Mihir S Sharma.
'If the BJP becomes the new Congress, then an Opposition within will naturally emerge -- from the right, not the left,' points out Mihir Sharma.
'If deterrence through India's conventional superiority is to be established now, then India will have to escalate to a point where its greater resources make the difference.' 'This is, to put it mildly, both difficult and dangerous and thus inadvisable,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
'In 2014, he was a relatively unknown quantity, and benefited from the apparent difference that he brought to national politics.'
India has remained obsessed with cheap capital and infrastructure spending when instead the central constraint on Indian development remains the abysmal quality of Indians' skills, says Mihir Sharma.
In refusing to accept its failure, the government has sowed the seeds of further damage: by keeping India short of cash; reducing the headroom for responses to seasonal spikes in cash demand; and increasing the chances that groups will panic at temporary cash shortages, says Mihir Sharma.
Who will make the most of the disruptions of 2016 this year? Mihir Sharma's list of probables.
'For a party with a fuzzy ideology, one that lives only for power, having a leadership that thought vaguely about returning to power in the distant future was a distinct handicap,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
The truth is that few ministries in the Modi sarkar are working on new and updated legislation of any kind.
If I were the BJP, I would not be celebrating quite so quickly. It can sweep its heartland in 2014, as it has shown it can do, but that heartland isn't quite big enough. And it can put up a good fight in towns and cities, too - but unless it neutralises AAP or similar political entrepreneurs, it may find itself tantalisingly short, just as has happened to it in Delhi, says Mihir Sharma.
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