Saturday, March 26, 2011

An introspective period for the Congress

Everything is not hunkydory in the current hot political space of India. The ruling party is literally battered by a series of corruption scandals, many have been unfolded internally and many are peeping out of the holes of WikiLeaks, and the most astounding fact aligned to these trails of corruption is the support of Congress in the UPA alliance in betraying the trusts of a billion plus people and forcing this great nation to a state of despair. The shimmering political instability due to the furore over wide-ranging corruptions, coupled with idiosyncratic disillusioned coalition partners, has tightened the noose around this government. There are many reasons to the evolving political turmoil that has bugged the UPA in general, and the Congress party in specific. If we can remember the history of Congress, as the frequented ruling party at the Centre, it's quite conspicuous that the last three coalition governments led by Congress including the current one have been involved in large-scale corruptions. That said it also doesn't suffice the sanctity or integrity of the Congress as a political party either led by Indira or Rajiv. India has been a silent observer of highhandedness of this party at different points of history including the internal emergency during 1975.

The coalition government, as initiated by the then VP Singh, the crusader of political corruption in India, has lost its true sense. Now it's more dangerous a political option to govern the largest democracy of the world with whims and fancies of regional parties which in every now and then gamble the political decisions in difficult times, whether it's civil nuclear bill or any other bill. The recent government, despite being headed by an honest, intellectual, wise statesman like Dr. Manmohan Singh, has revealed the wildest dark zones of coalition politics. Instead the cognizance of many political offenses happening under his nose, he stands helpless and stoic, for the simple reason that he has to follow his coalition dharma. And the irony is that despite all corruption charges against various UPA coalition partners, he still manages to share a mysterious smile that reveals much of his expression than what he intends to hide from public. That's his eternal magnanimous character to stay cool and keep a blind eye to the political rampage stirred by the coalition partners, and perhaps that's his most preserved strength, which has impressed Sonia Gandhi for last two elections and compelled her to choose him the right candidate as the prime minister. At least, he understands the reality, and has also experienced it many times, that he, being the prime minister of the largest democratic country, is still not an elected representative of people. What could be more exciting than this? But the Congress party will never accrue any long term benefit as Sonia Gandhi aspires a smooth dynastic power transition to Rahul Gandhi in the next election. It seems, as the current political equations are brewing up, Rahul will be the most unfortunate scion of Congress losing a golden chance to rule this nation.

The evidences are clear now. Rahul Gandhi's down-to-earth personality and hardwork haven't even charmed the states across India. Over these years the Congress has lost contacts with the states, and if the regional political upsurges are any denominator of current power matrix, it's quite evident that the next Parliament elections will be disastrous for the Congress. The major states including UP, Bihar, Gujrat, West Bengal, Odisha, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu are either ruled by a regional party or BJP. UP most of the times was ruled by Congress; however, in last two decades, the regional parties took control of the state politics. So, if we seriously analyze the political dynamics of India, the mushrooming regional parties in reality have understood the pains of state citizens, and hence their continued success is an indicative of drastic failure of central parties like Congress and BJP. If anybody in the Congress could seriously understand the importance of state political leadership was none other that Rajiv Gandhi. His unfortunate demise was a turning point in the political aggressiveness of the Congress. And the post-Rajiv Congress party has been absolutely directionless, nonstrategic, and tactless. Both Sonia and Rahul have failed to understand the gravity of reorganization of the party at the state level. Sonia's selection of Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister for consecutive terms was a grave mistake, especially in the lights political standpoints. Though Sonia's fear of losing her leadership control over the party could have been imminent given an alternative to Manmohan Singh, but her worst fear has yet to come, when Rahul will be betrayed by Indian voters in the next election. Though I don't vouch for any senior leadership in Congress for the post of Prime Minister, Rahul Gandhi could have been the best bet at least for the 2009 elections, despite his naive and immature stint in politics. Moving away from this option was the grandest mistake executed by Sonia Gandhi, maybe due to fear for some unknown reasons, but those were necessarily irrational. In India, and exclusively in political race, the charisma of any dynasty has been highly effective. If Rahul could have been the Prime Minister, he would have immense power not only in drawing policies effective for state levels, but also could have helped reorganizing the state leadership for the Congress party. The so called grassroots development and especially state concerns have been sidelined by the Centre in last two elections. Being just a remote control of power, Sonia Gandhi has under-weighed the serious reasons in political game, which could bring in devastating results in the next Parliament elections. Still she has time for course correction to evade the imminent danger, if at all she wishes to do. Are you listening, Sonia Ji?

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