Tailspin

Financial impropriety seems to be the flavour of the season and the incumbent are suddenly finding themselves in all kinds of mess.. avoidable mess if you ask me. Media are breathing down the neck of the Government and the opposition is watching with glee, the Government fire-fight with various institutions and give lengthy explanations as to how and when the system failed, which led to individual(s) make unseemly large profit at the cost of the public exchequer. The Government, has partly (in some cases wholly) shouldered the blame and is willing to take corrective measures. The most recent Group Of Ministers (GOM) meeting was on the burning subject of corruption and if we do have a normal Parliament Budget session, maybe most of the bills passed will be regarding how to fight corruption more effectively. I humbly submit that the Government has understood the law of diminishing returns if a cover up is attempted on the issue of corruption. My sympathies are with the Dr. Manmohan Singh Government, not because I admire him as a person and an able PM, but because I believe everyone must be given a chance to come clean. So respected PM, I as an individual, I give you one chance to redeem the faith in your Government. Please do not fail me.



It has become a norm that anyone who talks on behalf of the present Government to be a Congress supporter and the one who opposes is a BJP (right wing) supporter. I am an exception. I do not support BJP ideology but I loved Mr. A.B. Vajpayee as the PM. Basically, I love good administrators and I believe they should be given necessary benefit of doubt, as governance is a tricky subject and politics a murky game. So my love and devotion for Dr. Manmohan Singh is more out of his ability to govern the country effectively rather than him being a Rajya Sabha MP for Indian National Congress. I do not agree that Dr. Singh is a weak PM. Neither did I agree that Vajpayee was a weak PM. Both are comparable in their in their zest to do good for the country and both the PMs were hamstrung by the opposition to their plans by the BJP. Yes sir, the biggest opposition to Vajpayee was the BJP rather than the then principal opposition. This brings me to my point of the day.. "Why is the BJP sabotaging its own credibility as a viable alternative".



I am not going to point at the BJP's divisive agenda on cast politics because they have a constituency for such thoughts and I have no value judgement to make of how they work on their ideology. Its the politics played by them in recent years that irk me. I sometimes feel the BJP should wake up and smell the coffee, take up the responsibility of being the principal opposition and not act in the sheer irresponsible way that would dent their credibility forever. No one has forgotten the U-turn the BJP did on the Indo-US nuclear agreement that was initiated by Mr. A. B. Vajpayee during his tenure. They went hammer and tongs to oppose the same deal that they chalked out during their tenure just to bring down the Dr. Manmohan Singh's government. Taking this stance on an issue of major importance for India's infrastructure development speaks lowly about where their loyalties lie. Opposing for the sake of opposition seemed the "mantra" when Mr. L. K. Advani was the leader of opposition. Later, during the 2009 General elections, Advani seemed to "forget" what entire India remembered, as he squarely refused to accept accountability of the decisions Mr. A.B. Vajpayee's goverment took, in which, he was the Deputy Prime Minister. Still the worst mistake of the BJP is the stance they have taken in the present seasons of scams. The opposition is the watch dog on the democracy and is there to make the government answerable to the people of India. We saw, during the past few months, that the Government was getting away scot free. No discussions happened, in fact the Parliament was not even allowed to function.



People wrote articles as to why is the PM silent on the scams. I have a better question, why was the PM not made to answer. Isn't the opposition responsible for not allowing the Government to answer, so far. The Ministers of the Union cabinet are currently going around providing rejoinders to the opposition theories on media platforms. The entire scene has become so murky that the whole crux of the matter seemed to have been forgotten, i.e. "holding the Government accountable for financial irregularities". The privilege of the Parliament to be the only forum to which a Government is answerable was breached. Who is responsible for this mess? The opposition, instead of making the Government answer uncomfortable questions upfront, did not allow Parliament to function. In the meanwhile the Government got its act together and are on course correction. Now during the upcoming budget session, the Government has had time to prepare the answers, thanks to the reprieve given by the opposition and take the battle to the opposition benches. Was this smart politics?? The BJP is losing it. They do this time and again. The Government, in its infinite stupidity, provide the BJP with various opportunities to nail it. Every single time, the BJP, instead of pinning down the Government to its mistakes, takes it as an opportunity to come back to power and end up squandering the chance. Mr. L.K. Advani's statement "There could be a general election before 2014" sums it up. Its time the politically senile generation of BJP, namely Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, MM Joshi make way for the likes of Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Narendra Modi, Shivraj Patil etc. so that the BJP stand a genuine chance at least in 2014. I do not know if I am angry or happy for the demise of the BJP as a viable alternative for the present dispensation, but I blame the party senior leaders for sending a formidable party into tailspin. The people of India will not forgive Advani and his likes for taking away the choice of alternative from them.



So long....