UPA Report Card: Nothing to cheer about

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

It was a birthday celebration sans any fanfare as the UPA limped to complete four years in its second avatar. With a series of scams behind it and elections staring it in the face, even the die-hard supporters of Congress wore a forlorn look as the future looks uncertain.

In the last four years, people would be hard pressed to recall any significant policy that would be a game changer for the battle of 2014 which could even be fought towards the end of 2013 given the dynamics of politics at the regional level. The battle of 2009 was fought in the backdrop of schemes like MANREGA and loan waiver to the farmers; schemes which helped consolidate its vote bank in the rural areas.

Now when elections could be held anytime within the next 11 months, all which the government and Congress spokesmen cite as achievement is direct transfer of subsidies. The scheme is yet to take root and the minuses and scams of the last four years simply outweigh this small administrative step. Perhaps a few in the Government think that the proposed Food Security Bill or the Land Acquisition Bill would be a panacea for all the ills plaguing it. But remember, most of the State Governments are already giving rice and wheat at `1 to `2 a kg and the fatigued voters are not going to buy this scheme. Similarly, however liberal the Land Acquisition Bill may be, it will benefit only a small section of the population.

The fourth anniversary bash of the UPA (read Congress) took place at a time when something which everyone suspected all along became public knowledge. Every voter in the country suspected that CBI was used to fix political opponents and help the ruling party members. The affidavit of the CBI chief in the Supreme Court confirmed this and in Law Minister Ashwani Kumar, the government found a scapegoat. He was shown the exit door. But this is not a case of a simple resignation. It was the case of an institution losing its face before the public and a crisis of credibility which the premier investigation agency faces. Now, no one would even ask whether the CBI was taking briefs from the Government all these nine years. People know that this was the case.

They would also suspect the investigations of CBI in each and every case where politicians are involved, mostly of the Opposition parties.

Not only CBI, another institution Railways-came under intense scanner ahead of UPA’s anniversary bash. Earlier, one had heard that posts of clerks and assistant station master were sold to the highest bidder by the Railway Recruitment Boards. But this was the biggest of them all as a member of the Railway Board was caught giving bribe to the nephew of Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal for a choice posting which involved purchases to the tune of crores. As the glare has shifted to corruption and betting in the IPL, there are no updates on the investigations in the Railgate. No one would buy the argument that a board member would deal with a private person and give him money unless he is sure that his work would be done.

Whatever Bansal does and however hard he tries, it will only be CBI’s benevolence which can absolve him from the case. Given the way law enforcement agencies work and the way governments have an influence on it, give the case to Gujarat Police or the Punjab Police, they will immediately find the links reaching up to the former Railway Minister and Chandigarh MP.

When the third birthday bash was organised in 2012 for the UPA, it had three dozen more MPs to count on. A year down the line, big brotherly and arrogant attitude cost it dearly as it lost Trinamool Congress and the DMK in the process without adding any new ally. Samajwadi Party, on whose support the survival of Government depends, is threatening the UPA day in and day out. It did not even take part in the bash. Ruling party bosses know that both SP and the BSP are supporting the government with the stick of the CBI looming large not because of its policies and programmes which they criticise every other day.

After nine years, the Government seems to have lost its way and does not know which way to go. It looks tired and haggard. Fatigue has set in and so has the death wish.

The economist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is best remembered as Finance Minister of the country in PV Narasimha Rao Government over 20 years ago for bringing radical changes in the economy. For posterity, he would have to explain why his expertise in economics failed to lift the economy of the country in the last few years. Despite being the only economist Prime Minister of the country, he would be hard pressed to list the achievements on the economic front.

The fiasco of the government is on several fronts but undoubtedly corruption tops the list. Bansal episode was only the latest one definitely not the last for the beleaguered Government. Commonwealth Games scam, 2G spectrum allocation, Coal-Gate, Tatra truck scam, helicopter scam, cash-for-vote scam, Adarsh scam, Satyam scam…the list is only growing.

“Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is synonymous with indecision, inability and silence. Never in history has the institution of the Prime Minister been at the receiving end of wit, sarcasm and ridicule. The legitimacy of the office of the Prime Minister has been denuded,” Arun Jaitley, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha said. You may or may not agree with the politics of BJP, but Jaitley hit the bull’s eye with the statement. The term “policy paralysis” for the Government has stuck.

The way the Government handled the protests led by Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev is still fresh in the memory. Then when protests broke out throughout the country, following the brutal rape of a 23-year-old Delhi girl in a bus, the Government was found wanting in the way it dealt with the students and the protesters.

The handling of the Maoists in the last nine years too left a lot to be desired. The confusion was apparent when P Chidambaram was the Home Minister and Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh questioned the tough approach of the Government. The same Maoists, against whom Digvijay Singh wanted a soft approach, have struck with a vengeance, assassinating the top leadership of the party in Chhattisgarh. Soft peddling and speaking with divergent views on the grave problem will only embolden the mass killers. It was time for a decisive action, something a Government undergoing “policy paralysis” won’t undertake. A section of Congress leadership in the Naxal-hit State is trying to politicise the issue, not realising that a national consensus is needed to tackle Naxal and Jehadi terror. 

As the UPA entered election year, the report card has been rather gloomy, bereft of any achievement-anything which the people could remember when they go out to vote in the general elections. Will the Government pull out a rabbit from its hat at the last minute? It seems unlikely. (May 27, 2013) 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/upa-report-card-nothing-to-cheer-about.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/2013-05-26-9295.html

Time bomb of IPL explodes

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

Early this month, a friend coaxed me to join him in watching an IPL match at Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) stadium in Mohali, just a kilometre from my residence in Chandigarh.

Reluctantly, I agreed — not to watch cricket but to talk about myriad other things with food and drinks thrown in as all inclusive price of the high-end tickets of the corporate boxes. Last year, I watched two games and this year too, I could not gather enough courage to watch more than two of the six matches scheduled in Mohali.

Sitting in the stadium, I realised how little stake and involvement the people had while watching the match. Very few were interested in the cricket being played in the ground and almost everyone was confused as to which team to support. At the end, spectators just clapped  for the good shot, a good ball or a good fielding effort. The team was immaterial. This was not surprising as the so called home team Kings XI Punjab hardly had any Punjabi players with whom the people could associate. It was led by an Australian Adam Gilchrist and another Australian Darren Lehmann was the coach. Apart from the name Punjab suffixed with Kings XI, there was nothing Punjabi about the team.

I wondered why at all people would watch the match and why would they support any team as there was nothing to choose between the two competing teams. I asked my friend about it. “It is unscripted drama. In a movie, you have a script, in a television soap opera you have a script. But here, the cricketing drama is unscripted and that is the real fun,” he told me.

Ten days later, I realised that the script of the IPL match too was written and what came out in the episode of Sreesanth and others of Rajasthan Royals must have been going on ever since the hastily put IPL came on the scene. Remember, IPL was a reaction to the Indian Cricket League (ICL) put up by the Zee group after the World Cup fiasco of India. The BCCI reacted to the ICL in which legends like Kapil Dev were associated and put up IPL under the now disgraced Lalit Modi, safely ensconced in London after a series of cases in India.

As IPL was a reaction to ICL, all norms were thrown to the wind and it started with the trial and error methodology. Some norms, just for the sake for it, were put up to keep the cricketing tamasha going on by the BCCI. It was the cricketing equivalent of a three-hour long formula film to milk the cricket loving nation’s public.

After the spot fixing scandal, that façade which the IPL and its parent body BCCI had built assiduously has gone. Now everything is under scrutiny. Even if a player suffers from some itching problem genuinely and scratches his body, it would be construed as a signal to some bookies. What to say of putting towel in trousers, even if he sneezes, smiles, appeals or ties the laces of his shoes, the action would be scrutinised. The spectators watching the match would find it fishy even if something natural happens in the field. I suspect that the Sreesanth saga is just tip of the iceberg.

Cricket undoubtedly is one game, which triggers myriad feelings among Indians — euphoria when the country wins, jingoism when the victory is against Pakistan, excitement when there is a photo finish and a sense of loss which lingers for days when team India gets beaten in a one-sided match. It is one common thread from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Arunachal Pradesh to Gujarat which brings strangers together and they can break into a conversation on the performance of Sachin Tendulkar or why a particular player has been inducted or kept out of the team.

After watching IPL unfold before me last year and this year, my romance with the game and nostalgia associated with cricket went for a toss. Even without spot or match fixing, I saw the game being reduced to a caricature in which there was no place for emotions, no place for the classical game which cricket is. Instead, it was a big circus, an entertainment and not sports.

After being dropped at the main gate when I started walking towards the entrance of the stadium, instead of getting a feeling of cricket or a sporting event, it seemed as if I was going for a disco or a late night party. Nattily dressed boys and girls, men and women had applied perfumes and cologne liberally. Bouncers of the “Home” team were there all over the place, flexing their biceps and walking with chest pulled up so that the fat around their tummy is not visible.

Socialites of Chandigarh, aspiring models, businessmen from the region, a few bureaucrats and police officers who had obviously been given free passes, moved from the bar to the snacks counter and then to their seats. They were interested in everything else but cricket. It was a social outing for almost all of them. Clearly, the venue was the most happening place of the city that night and the IPL match was incidental.

Some of the spectators had been sponsored by a corporate house and were wearing the T-Shirts of their sponsors after winning a promotional event. When they go back home, they will obviously tell their neighbours that they saw the Sukhna Lake, Rose Garden, Sector 17 market and the IPL match at Mohali stadium. They were clicking frantically and this would be the proof for their neighbours. I wondered how many would remember who was batting or bowling and which team got defeated the next day.

Just to have a feel of the atmosphere, I stepped out on the balcony from the AC lounge. Loud music blared the moment an over was bowled. The cheerleaders were caged in nets and surrounded by policemen in Khaki and bouncers in black so that no one threw bottles or anything at them. Only the portion of the “cage”, facing the playing arena, was not covered with nets to enable the TV cameras film the cheerleaders dancing for the TV viewers in the rest of the country.

Sreesanth, Chavan and Chandila are a timely wake-up call. Make a distinction between cricket and entertainment. As long as you treat cricket as an entertainment and not a sporting event, such incidents would continue to be repeated. (May 20, 2013) 

 http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/time-bomb-of-ipl-explodes.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/2013-05-19-8439.html

Fix tenure of governments at four years

VIEWPOINT 

AMITABH SHUKLA    

When the people of Karnataka went to vote on May 5, they already knew the CBI had arrested the nephew of Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal for bribery and they were aware of the damning expose that highest posts in the railways were up for grabs by those paying the "right money to the right people."

The people of the southern State also knew by then that Law Minister Ashwani Kumar and the PMO had vetted and made changes in the affidavit of the investigating agency in the infamous coal scam, the links of which go up to the highest echelons of government, to the doors of the Prime Minister. People knew that it was the culprit who was changing the discourse to escape the dragnet of law.

Before May 5, not only the people of Karnataka, but also the entire country knew how the son-in-law of the most powerful person in the Congress and indeed the Central government-Sonia Gandhi-had benefited from the land deals in the NCR region of Haryana with the help of a friendly Congress-ruled State government. Whatever the subsequent enquiries, constituted by the State government said, the lingering doubt of the people that there were irregularities, favours and wrong doing can never be obliterated.

Also, do not forget the AgustaWestland helicopter scam which broke out early this year and the government was seen doing precious little to bring the guilty to book. As more scams hit the government, the helicopter scam seems to have been forgotten for a while.

But all this and the series of scams which began in 2009 did not deter the people from voting for the Congress in Karnataka, a party which is at the centre of so many scams in the last four years in its second avatar. Could this be a case of "my corruption versus your corruption?" Were the people weighing on a scale as to who was more corrupt, the bigger villain? 

When people went out to vote for the Karnataka Assembly polls on May 5, perception about corrupt practices and omissions and commissions of B S Yeddyurappa were more important for them than those of the UPA government. Their immediate concern was the issue in hand, change of governance in the State. People saw bigger evil in the way the State was governed in the last five years, the way scams broke out, Chief Minister was removed, the way Reddy brothers held a sway and looted the natural resources of the State. They saw instability and corruption and dumped the BJP government which they thought was responsible. For them, Delhi was too distant and in any case, there is Lok Sabha election too in which they can teach a lesson to the government in Delhi which Narendra Modi often says is "Delhi Sultanate."

Results of some recent Assembly polls have shown that people have delineated local issues and the national issues. They voted for Congress in Lok Sabha elections in UP in 2009 but rejected it lock, stock and barrel in 2012 Assembly polls. They will teach a lesson to the incumbent State Government if they find that their aspirations have not been met and dump the party. They will also give an affirmative vote to those who led the State without any controversy and were scam-free in their tenure.

Before Karnataka, we had Assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. Gujarat was thumbs up for BJP and Narendra Modi while Himachal was thumbs down for BJP and Prem Kumar Dhumal. In fact, in Himachal Pradesh, Dhumal's record was largely unblemished on the corruption front while his rival Virbhadra Singh was embroiled in a controversy and even had to resign as a Union Minister just before the polls. But this had no effect on the outcome as the people felt that their aspirations had not been fulfilled and they expected much more from the BJP government in the State.

The list of states where perceived good governance has paid is quite long and here people have voted the incumbent governments to power. Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh-all have voted for the incumbent government. Of course, elections are not fought only on issues of corruption and governance and a host of micro factors come in the picture, but largely perceived good governance, fulfillment of aspirations of the people do pay.

Given the changing dynamics of the choice of the people and the electoral behavior over a period of time, now I feel that giving five years to an incumbent government is too long and should be reduced so that the government of the day reflects the mood and aspirations of the voters, so that it does not become complacent, outdated and out of tune with what the people want. Nothing could be better if the time of elections is reduced to four years from the five years at present.

The Constitution of the country decided a five-year tenure a long time back-over six decades when the ground realities were entirely different. Much water has flown down the Ganges, Yamuna, Brahmaputra, Narmada and the Cauvery since then. Sticking to a five-year tenure now means that one has to do with a government even if it is out of tune with the aspirations of the people, out of sync with what they want, does not reflect their needs and no longer represents their collective will.

Had the elections of Karnataka been held a year back in May 2012, I don't think the results would have been any different. Yeddyurappa had made a mess of it much earlier. The Congress would still have won. Similarly, had the elections of Gujarat been held in December 2011, the results could have been similar. The Congress stood no chance there with a defeatist attitude and no alternative economic and social policy. If Lok Sabha elections are held now, in May 2013, we would actually see a government which represents the people truly, a government in tune with the aspirations of the people. The discredited would go out and those in tune with the aspirations of the people would get in. Whoever it is, it would be truly representative.

United Progressive Alliance, which is more or less only Congress as of now with most of the allies deserting it, lost the mandate of the people much earlier and not when it entered the fifth year. It frittered the mandate given in 2009. With one scam or the other rocking it every week and month, it no longer represents the aspirations of the people and their collective desire. But the people will have to do with it for five years as that is what the Constitution mandates.

Several State governments lose their steam sooner than the five years for which the voters elected them. They lose their relevance and carry on for the full term as the Constitution mandates even though they become irrelevant and lose focus much earlier. Nothing could be a better example than the Manmohan Singh-led government.

It was time the political parties built a consensus and changed the tenure of the State as well as the central governments for four years instead of the five at present. When a generation changes in ten years, the thought process and aspirations change much more frequently, it would be anachronistic to keep the tenure of the governments at five years.

Moreover, it would benefit all the parties and keep them on their toes and prod them to be pro public and motivate them to keep the aspirations of the people in mind all this while. The debate has to begin now. (May 13, 2013) 

 http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/fix-tenure-of-governments-at-four-years.html

Please define who is a Martyr

VIEWPOINT 

AMITABH SHUKLA

  

Sarabjit Singh has now become a part of history. After a campaign running into several years for his freedom, all his sister Dalbir Kaur could get was his body after the 49-year-old Bhikhiwind resident was brutally assaulted with an intention to kill in Pakistani custody.

There was competitive frenzy all around after the death to eulogize Sarabjit-something which never happened when he was alive and spent most of his adult life in Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore. Had the government shown the same levels of interest in him when he was alive, he could well have escaped the brutal assault and happily ensconced in his newly built house, very close to the international border with Pakistan.

Punjab government has coined the word “national martyr” for him and declared a three-day State mourning and organised a State funeral while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called him “brave son of India who bore his tribulations with valiant fortitude.” Then, there were leaders of all hues and affiliations who hailed him as a hero. All this came even though the Pakistan authorities repeatedly termed him a spy, tried him for serial blasts, held him responsible for the death of 14 people and even the Supreme Court of the country confirmed the death sentence.

This all leaves me very confused. I do not know whether he was a martyr, a spy, a simple farmer tilling someone else’s land, a case of mistaken identity as his family insists, a simple youth who went to Pakistan in an inebriated condition only to be framed later or a hardcore terrorist as Pakistan insists. After coming back from Bhikhiwind and talking to his friends and co-villagers, I am not any wiser.

If we leave apart competitive jingoism of the rival political parties - Congress and the Akali Dal, as Indians, we would first have to define what “martyr” is. Sarabjit never worked for the armed forces, police or the paramilitary forces. That is on record. No Indian agency, RAW, IB or Military Intelligence ever owned him and ever said he was an asset working in a foreign country. In such a situation, how can one assume that he was indeed a “martyr” who died for a national cause?

Even if the Central government knows that he was indeed a spy as all such networks are operated by the Central agencies, how is Punjab government so sure that he was a “national martyr” and gave Rs 1 crore to his family members, announced a State funeral and Government jobs to both his daughters. A State Government never sends spies to foreign countries nor is it privy to the information about Sarabjit, if any, which the Central Government possesses.

In Bhikhiwind, Sarabjit indeed was being hailed as a local hero by the co-villagers. But you ask them, what had he done for the country and they would stare at you blankly. For many, something big was happening in the village as dozens of OB vans showing Live feed were stationed all across and everyone with any connection with Sarabjit was giving an interview.

Now the politics of competitive popularity came in with the two main parties trying to own up Sarabjit. None would have liked to be behind in the game of one upmanship when frenzy was being built. And so, in the process Sarabjit got the status of a martyr with the government not even bothering to find out what the word actually means.

So far, I knew that Bhagat Singh was a martyr. So was Sukhdev, Rajguru, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Subhash Chandra Bose and numerous others who lost their lives fighting the British or died in the jails in Andaman and Nicobar Islands serving life sentence. I also knew that the heroes who fought against the enemies in 1948, 1962, 1965, 1971 and the Kargil conflict and made the supreme sacrifice of their lives are martyrs. Then there were hundreds of those in the police and paramilitary forces who fought insurgency in the north-east, Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab and foiled the designs of the hostile neighbors. No one would dispute that they are martyrs.

All those who guard our borders in inhospitable conditions and die either due to cross firing or bad weather are also martyrs. Somehow, for me, it is indeed difficult to relate Sarabjit to the martyrs of the above category, however hard the government tries or whatever the amount of footage the television channels give to his death and howsoever big attends his funeral. Can anyone in the government explain to me what exactly made him a martyr? In fact, I talked to a few officials and I did not get any answer.

A few weeks before Sarabjit’s death, another Indian prisoner Chamel Singh from the Jammu region too was assaulted in the same jail and killed in a similar manner. Chamel Singh too was accused by the Pakistani establishment to be a spy and his body was returned only after almost two months of his death. His family members are pleading and meeting everyone important urging for the status of martyr to him. But no one is listening. The battle among the parties for competitive populism would not yield anything here. There are no TV channels to take up the cause of the Jammu resident. Can anyone explain how Chamel Singh’s case is different from that of Sarabjit?

Punjab Assembly passed a resolution declaring Sarabjit a “national martyr”. Last year, the same Assembly passed a resolution welcoming Surjeet Singh who was released by Pakistan after spending three decades in a Pakistani jail. After a hero’s welcome, the spy has been left to fend for himself. While Surjeet, a former constable in the Border Security Force, says that he crossed over to Pakistan several times and was a spy, hired by an intelligence agency for the country, Home Secretary Raj Kumar Singh categorically denied the assertions. The Home Secretary then said that India was not into spying and the assertions of Surjeet are not correct.

Surjeet says he was abandoned by the country after being caught and there was no one to own him up all these years when he was in solitary confinement. Even Pakistani authorities had charged him with spying and awarded the death sentence which was commuted to life imprisonment later on.

In fact, there are tales of dozens of former spies in Punjab and the Jammu region who have been abandoned by the agencies and handlers who apparently used them. They claim that they worked for the country but no one ever came forward to own them up or offer any financial or moral support. After spending a time varying from one to three decades in jail, some of them are working as laborers now, some have become too old to take care of themselves, others are mental wreck and some of them question why they took up the profession of James Bond. A couple of them went on hunger strike to press for their demand which fell on deaf ears. Most of the former spies are semi literate, perhaps a qualification for a low-profile and high risk career which they voluntary adopted for a little money, adventure and idealism to serve for the country.

Apart from Surjeet, Gopal Das and Kashmir Singh were the last two spies whose return became a media event. Gopal Das was released in April 2011 after 27 years in jail while Kashmir Singh, who too was initially sentenced to death, like Sarabjit and Surjeet, was released in March 2008. After returning, both of them narrated a tale almost similar to the one which Surjeet has to tell. They admitted to spying and accused the country of doing little to secure their release or help their family while they were incarcerated in the jail.

In fact, the social, cultural and linguistic similarities along with the physical features of people inhabiting India’s Punjab and Jammu region is so similar to that of west Punjab in Pakistan that the agencies found the local youth ideal for the job in the 1960s, 70s and even the 80s.  Things changed in the late 80s and 90s when the fence came up on the international border and one could no longer cross over to the other side at will. Moreover, the role of traditional methods of spying and information gathering was no longer important considering the fact that in the era of technological boom, this was no longer needed. No country or agency needed pictures of vital installations and movement of the armed forces as the satellites captured and beamed the pictures much more effectively. The traditional methods of spying, the one in which Surjeet, Gopal Das and Kashmir Singh and countless others  were involved, had become obsolete and now is completely outdated.

If you recognise Sarabjit, wrongly or rightly, it was time you also recognised the Surjeets, Kashmirs, Gopals and countless others. Turning a deaf ear and a blind eye would not help. (May 6, 2013) 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/please-define-who-is-a-martyr.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/please-define--who-is-a-martyr.html

Secular-communal debate will do no good

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

Narendra Modi is the toast of the BJP, the flavour of the election season and the Gujarat Chief Minister realises it like no one else. He is travelling the length and breadth of the country, addressing sadhus and the corporate honchos alike along with election rallies in Karnataka and in the process his acceptability is gradually increasing even in those sections that would prefer not to touch him with a barge pole in the public.

His main competitor in the BJP for Prime Ministerial candidate, LK Advani, on the other hand, is like Sachin Tendulkar these days.

The form has deteriorated, the fans are deserting him and discovering new cricketing stars, he is past his prime but he still insists that there is more cricket left in him and needs to play not only for Mumbai Indians but also for India. In 2004, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister of the country and also the Prime Ministerial candidate of the party. BJP lost the "India shining campaign" and the election which it was widely expected to win. Down with poor health, he retired to his Krishna Menon Marg residence in New Delhi after playing a stellar role in national politics for almost half a century. In 2009, Advani was the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP. The party lost again this time with a bigger margin as compared to 2004 and finally Advani too acquired a semi-retired status when he did not become the Leader of Opposition and instead it was Sushma Swaraj who assumed charge. Advani became the Chairman of the NDA, a position which confirmed his semi-retired status as there is hardly any work profile for the ceremonial position he holds. He will turn 86 this November and when the premium is on youth, the BJP workers are gradually veering to the idea of a party with Advani being only an elder statesman and not the Captain of the ship.

Termed the perpetual yatri, the grand old man of rath yatras, Advani rode on the rath half a dozen times, starting with the Ayodhya Rath Yatra in 1990 to make the party really big in the subsequent polls. His last rath yatra was in 2011 and there is no immediate plan to launch another rath yatra in the near future. Fatigue, both in the leader and also the supporters, has prevented Advani from mounting another rath and looking for another cause.

Some in the BJP compare Advani with Tendulkar insisting that there is a sell by date of any sportsperson and a politician. In the case of a sportsperson, it is the body which starts showing the symptoms and the sportsperson cannot make runs, score that goal or defend the goal or simply cannot run the distance in the scheduled time. Newer and younger bodies have taken over, who run faster, score more runs, field better and bowl faster. In the case of politics, it is the idea which gets affected by fatigue with no new thoughts coming and one becoming the prisoner of the past. For the BJP, it is actually a choice between Dhoni and Virat Kohli on one side and Tendulkar on the other. It is not a difficult choice to make after all. In Modi, they see hope and are inspired and motivated, in Advani they see status quo and political uncertainty. A similar situation prevails in the Congress as well with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh past his sell by date and Rahul Gandhi, despite all his limitations, emerging as the new hope of the party with fresh ideas.

While Advani's rath has not moved in the last almost two years, Modi has been moving and addressing the business tycoons in Confederation of Indian Industry and also sitting with the saffron clad sadhus in Haridwar after the victory in Gujarat Assembly polls last year in December.  He is at ease with Cyrus Mistry of the Tata group and Mukesh Ambani of Reliance and also with Baba Ramdev of Patanjali Yoga Peeth and at Dharm Meemamsa Parishad in Kerala.

Post Godhra violence has been often cited by the Congress and Modi's critics of the secular fundamentalist brigade to pin him down. Perhaps, raj dharm was neglected for a while as the then Prime Minister Vajpayee aptly reminded Modi then. But Congress has far worse record on communal riots be it the numerous riots all throughout the 1960s, 70s and the 80s in various parts of the country when the party was in power in most of the communally sensitive states like Gujarat, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra where violence broke out and the minorities were repeatedly targeted. Then how can Congress brush aside 1984 anti-Sikh riots when the genocide was carried out after the assassination of Indira Gandhi in the national Capital and elsewhere?

Many won't remember and intentionally forget which party was ruling Maharashtra in 1992-93 when the worst communal riots took place post the Babri Masjid demolition. It was Sudhakar Rao Naik of the Congress who played the politics of masterly inactivity by failing to act against the rioters. Why doesn't the Congress remember that it presided over the killing of a thousand people and did not follow the raj dharm ten years before Gujarat riots? Has anyone in the Congress apologized for the Mumbai riots ever?  I agree that unlike the anti-Sikh riots in 1984, Congress workers and cadres were not involved in Mumbai. But then, if you want Modi to be accountable and held guilty for post Godhra violence, you should also accept accountability for Mumbai riots and the anti-Sikh riots. You do not have a better record on that front.  A pot cannot call the kettle black and that too repeatedly. This is what the Congress has been trying to do all this while and instilling a sense of fear amongst the minorities by making a demon out of Modi in all these 11 years.

"My manifesto is everyone should be healthy and welfare for all. In Gujarat (where) riots happened every other day and innocents were killed, today after 12 years there is not a sign of riots," Modi said in Haridwar. I am not an ardent admirer of Modi's style of dictatorial politics, but there is an element of truth in what he said. I remember in my years of growing up, every alternate month I used to hear about "clashes between two communities" in the All India Radio. Invariably, these clashes led to death of innocents from both communities. Punish all those who are found guilty of the post Godhra riots, including Modi, if there is evidence, but do not condemn the person forever. Look ahead, do not dig the graves and open the wounds time and again. Perhaps the Congress wants to keep the wounds fresh to reap electoral dividends and play the insecurity card amongst the minorities. You have been doing it repeatedly, time and again. It was time you fulfilled the aspirations of the minorities for economic progress, education, giving them an equal role in opportunities rather than perpetually create fear and play on that.

Senior columnist and journalist Swapan Dasgupta argued in this newspaper that "Modi is an idea whose time has come". Undoubtedly, Modi promises to break status quoism in governance with his model of development, successfully implemented in Gujarat and it was time he got a wider canvas for implementing his developmental ideas. In the Congress, I believe that Rahul is also an idea whose time has come. Instead of inner party debates and machinations, let the voters decide who is a better idea and whose time has come and for how long. Move away from the decades old secular-communal debate which started over 100 years ago in early 1900. It has not done any good to the country nor will it ever do. (Monday, April 29, 2013) 

 http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/2013-04-28-6017.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/secular-communal-debate-will-do-no-good.html

FULFILL ASPIRATIONS OF PEOPLE, DON’T BRIBE THEM

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

In the game of electoral populism, no one wants to be left behind. You name the party-regional or national-populism is the punch-line in the electoral manifestos of almost all of them.

Instead of offering good governance, economic prospects, a vision for the future and meeting the aspirations of the youth, offering freebies is being increasingly considered as an election winning formula.

The latest is the Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka. Fighting a losing battle due to five years of indifferent performance plagued by indecision, corruption, blackmailing by the Reddy brothers and removal of a well-entrenched Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, BJP has come out with what it thinks is its trump card. This is offering of rice at Rs 1 per kg to the poor families of the State. In addition, the party will give laptops or tablets free of cost to pre-university and graduate students.

Frankly, I haven't been to Karnataka in recent months but prima facie, it looks difficult for the BJP to return to power in Karnataka-the first State in south India where it came to power on its own and ran a Government for a full term. Freebies won't help here when your record of five years is before the people to judge. Remember in 2008, Congress had offered rice at Rs2 per kg and also a colour TV for all families living below the poverty line but still the party lost the polls and remained in opposition. In addition, Congress had offered houses to 15 lakh families and made a host of other promises but it cut little ice with the voters then. In the era of competitive populism, what if Congress offers rice at Rs25 paise per Kg and 32 inch LCD Television with DTH connection to every home in rural areas?

The logic is not difficult to deduct. No one is bothered about populism any more. Even if you offer free rice to everyone and give a laptop and mobile phone to every soul passing on the streets, they will not vote for you unless you have a sound policy and programme and they are completely fed up with the existing government. The greatest blunder which is being done is that instead of meeting the growing aspirations of the people, you are simply trying to bribe them and cater to their base instincts. Competitive populism has swept the thinking process of the election managers rather than judging and then formulating a strategy to meet the aspirations of the younger generation.

UPA Government has mastered the technique of offering direct and indirect bribe to the people at the cost of public exchequer. NREGA, a big drain on exchequer, gives guaranteed employment for 100 days. I am not opposed to the scheme per se. It has indeed helped the poorest of the poor in several states where there are hardly any opportunities for employment. But for heaven's sake aren't the people and tax payers entitled to know what kind of work was being done with the massive amount which goes under NREGA. Having travelled extensively in the so called backward areas of the country-Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand-I have failed to see any difference brought about from the work undertaken with the scheme. For how long would you dig an imaginary pond and then fill it? At the end of the day in most of the areas, it has turned out to be a bribe to the voters. You rob Peter to pay Paul.

Why can't NREGA work include long term infrastructure creation — highway construction, making of bridges on rivers, laying of new railway tracks? Why can't NREGA funds be used if an Industrialist wants to set up a venture in the rural areas and wants to give permanent employment to the people?  The industrialists and entrepreneurs will get incentive in terms of free labour as government is providing funds from NREGA and this will benefit the area concerned for a long time. Obviously, no one is thinking on those lines-of creating lasting infrastructure-as it is not as populist and NREGA continues to bleed the finances of the country without commensurate benefit for the current and future generations.

In any case, whatever you offer as bribe, voters are wise and becoming wiser by the day. They would take what you offer and want more. Instead of 100 days of guaranteed employment, the demand is now of 200 days. Similarly, the amount of money being given per day, is being increased every year and the demand is for increasing it more. If NREGA were not enough, you want to give Guarantee to Food to everyone through the proposed Right to Food Bill as if people are not getting their food. They will buy food at Rs2 per kg from NREGA funds, don't bother about Right to Food. The aspirations of the people have grown and it is not limited to having a free food.

But, as offering bribe is becoming common by the day, the scheme of giving subsidy money directly in your bank account has been started. Obviously, the indirect subsidy given so far was not visible and people did not even realise that they were getting subsidy. Now, the Government wants everyone to realise that it is the mai-baap and gives them money as well. How long will this populism continue? You do not want to fulfill the aspirations of better life for the people but instead want to cater only to greed.

Regional parties too have acquired the habit of their big brothers at the national level. The Shiromani Akali Dal promised free laptops with data cards for class 12 students in government schools and 10 lakh jobs in their manifesto released in 2012. One year down the line, no one knows what happened to the laptops and the promised jobs. The Government came down to tablets and has now forgotten even that. I wonder, how the cash-strapped Punjab Government can fulfill its promise when it repeatedly delays the payment of salaries and pensions. It does not talk on the issue any longer and would promise something more bizarre like a two-wheeler to the voters next time when it contests the polls in 2017.

In Uttar Pradesh, it was Samajwadi Party which offered free laptops. It gave some of the laptops in a well-publicised function. Perhaps it helped the cause of the manufacturing company as I wonder how giving laptops would help in the empowerment of the students and youth. There is an old saying that instead of giving fish, you teach how to fish. Instead of giving food, you teach them how to grow food. This is what is lacking. You just want to give them freebies forever and make them dependent. What will UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav do in the next election? Promise a free seven-day trip to Switzerland or to the relatively cheaper Singapore and Thailand to every family in the state!

This business of bribing voters practically started in Tamil Nadu in 2006 when DMK offered colour television to the voters if it was voted to power. In the last election, it virtually became a war with competitive populism gripping both the parties. The Dravidian parties, DMK and the AIADMK announced bizarre offer to the voters one after the other-free laptops, kitchen appliances, fans, mixies and grinders, even 4 gram gold mangalsutra for the poor, monetary help for rural households, free rice and what not. These parties really would have to become extremely innovative in future elections as they have offered almost everything they could and people would want more and more, the frugal finances of the states and the inability to fulfill the promises notwithstanding. Perhaps a trip to the moon would be a better idea.

As the election season year progresses, we would see more and more of such offer to the voters from the ruling parties in the states as well as the Centre. The Opposition would indulge in a similar competitive populism. Perhaps there would be proposals for legislation on Right to breathe, Right to walk, Right to drive a car so on and so forth. There is no full stop there. (April 22, 2013) 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/fulfill-aspirations-of-people-dont-bribe-them.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/fulfill-aspirations-of-the-people-dont-bribe-them.html

DON’T PUSH PUNJAB TO THE BRINK

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

Almost two years ago, the then President Pratibha  Patil rejected the mercy petition of Khalistani terrorist  Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, accused of killing a dozen people on Raisina Road in New Delhi. This led to breast beating by a section of hardliners as well as liberal leaders in Punjab who wanted their place in the sun for a while. The Akali Dal also did lip service and demanded the customary clemency but never pushed the issue beyond a point.

Then it was the Beant Singh assassin Balwant Singh Rajoana who hogged the limelight last year, days after the SAD-BJP government came to power in March 2012. A lower court fixed the date for the hanging and asked Punjab government to comply with the orders. There was frenzy all over the state with the same police officers known for their “bullet for bullet” theory, making all attempts to save Rajoana who wanted to be hanged and called a “martyr”,  has no remorse or has never challenged the orders of the court convicting him.

Now, it is back to Bhullar as the Supreme Court has rejected his plea challenging the rejection of mercy petition and claiming that he has been in jail for too long a period and this is a ground not to give capital punishment. Akali Dal is back demanding that the government save Bhullar, whose name has been prefixed by Professor. No one knows what kind of Professor Bhullar was but the resolution of the Core Committee of Akali Dal described the rejection of the petition by Supreme Court for commuting the death sentence of  “Professor”  Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar as “deeply painful, unfortunate and worrying”.

Ironically, the statement of the Akali Dal comes at a time when no one wants to remember the dark chapter in Punjab’s history in the 1980s and the early 90s. Terrorism only led to misery for every Punjabi and 20 years after it has come to an end, politics on periodic mercy pleas and raking up the issue could play with the sentiments of the younger generation.

Recently, former Punjab DGP, KPS Gill was in Chandigarh to deliver a lecture and he advocated need for a law which makes sympathy with such causes an offence, something which was done in post Nazi Germany. Gill, credited for uprooting terrorism from Punjab along with his officers, would surely say that SAD coming to defence of Bhullar, is an act which should have at best been avoided.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and party president and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal will soon meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and urge them “to operationalise the post-judicial   mechanism  of statesmanship in order to avoid even at this stage  any steps that may pose a threat to peace and communal harmony in the country in general and Punjab in particular.” What is troublesome is that whenever execution becomes imminent, there are petitions and counter petitions for the condemned militants. Perhaps that could be the reason why Ajmal Kasab and then Afzal Guru were hanged in secrecy. I am not a champion of death sentence nor do I endorse it, but certainly I am against politicizing the issue which is being done right now. Thankfully, the case of Kasab was not politicized because he hailed from Pakistan and Guru only got lip sympathy in Jammu and Kashmir.

Bhullar and Rajoana should be punished as per law. But then, the legal system has to act swiftly and decisively in other cases also. The perception in Punjab is that the legal system could not punish those accused of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in the Delhi and rest of the country. Can anyone defend the fact that Jagdish Tytler’s case is still in the courts 29 years after the riots. You either acquit him or punish him. Similarly, is the case of Sajjan Kumar—still going on. Then, no one knows if anyone has been convicted for the 1984 riots in rest of the country.  Tytler’s case lingers on--almost 3 decades have passed and no one knows how many decades more are required to reach a logical conclusion. This is a travesty of law — doing injustice to both the victims and even the accused.

Referring to the apex court decision on Bhullar and the delay in Tytler’s trial, Akali Dal observed that the decision “is bound to invite parallels with the failure of the Delhi and Union governments to ensure exemplary punishments to those guilty of cold-blooded massacre of thousands of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and other parts of the country in 1984. Killers in fact are not only roaming free but have even by rewarded with plum political posts. Against this back-ground, the rejection of petition in Professor Bhullar’s case will strengthen the perception among the Sikh masses that two separate sets of  laws operated in the country and that they have been subjected to discriminatory treatment even in the courts of justice.”

Police officials who fought terrorism throughout the 1980s and the early 1990s say that all the ingredients of radicalization and militancy exist in the State even today.

They cite mixing of religion and politics, increasing relevance of the radical groups and their new role as lobbyists for the radical cause and a hostile neighbour as factors which could help revive the embers which were doused after great efforts.

Unemployment on a large scale, drug abuse, diminishing returns from agriculture and the failure to bring in the second green revolution could be the other contributory factors. What has added fuel to fire in recent months and years is the reach of social networking sites and the new media through which radicalization is taking place at a much faster place.  Such a powerful medium did not exist in the 1980s and early 90s and clearly intelligence and police officials are worried about its impact.

There are hundreds of websites, blogs and facebook pages which extol the terrorists of yesteryears and carry their pictures, life sketches and glorify their acts of terror, portraying the government in extremely poor light.

The Government can do little about it as they are hosted from foreign countries and even if you ban one, they change the domain name and appear again. There are websites which ask for donations for the cause of a separate state and even ask for as little as $5 as contribution. The case of Rajoana and Bhullar was fought not only through official channels but also through the cyber world where a few thousand “liked” the page on the assassin and added their comments on it.  There were several incidents in the recent past which clearly suggested that the radicals can mobilise the people of Punjab with little or no effort. Controversy on the voting rights of the Sehejdhari Sikhs, killing of Sant Ramanand of Dera Sachkhand in Vienna in 2009 and before that the controversy involving Dera Sacha Sauda’s Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim in 2007 led to widespread disturbance.

The radical elements are waiting on the fringes as the Shiromani Akali Dal occupies the main political space in the state. But overlooking the warning signals could prove to be counterproductive and it is here that the ruling party in Punjab will have to be on guard. (April 15, 2013) 

 http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/2013-04-14-4284.html

Three power centres in Congress--Sonia, Manmohan and Rahul

  

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

  

It seems AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh is setting the political agenda for the Congress with one remark or the other every six months. He is the only leader of the party to take a stand on a given issue, often ambiguous, which only creates further confusion all around. At the end of the day, after several rounds of the party disassociating itself from Singh’s statement, it is back to square one. No one gets any wiser.

When the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister on a “electoral sanyas” for 10 years ever since the Congress lost the state to BJP’s Uma Bharti in 2003, decried the concept of two power centres—Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi—and advised heir apparent Rahul Gandhi that the model should not be emulated, there has been a storm in the party.

Another General Secretary, Janardan Dwivedi, who is also the head of the media department and considered a miser with words, comes in the picture and claims what he says is the “official stand” of the party and what Singh says is “unofficial” and personal remarks.  Dwivedi, the Rajya Sabha member from Delhi, says the dual power centre has worked well for the party and could be a model for the future also.

Now, the problem is whom should the people and the Congress workers believe—Singh or Dwivedi. Had the party snubbed Singh and suspended him from the party for taking a stand which is contrary to that of the official stand, people would have believed Dwivedi. But nothing of that sort happened. In fact, Singh went on and stated that he has not taken back his words. So you now have two versions on the model of dual centres of power—one of Singh and the other of Dwivedi.

It is now upto party President Sonia Gandhi or Vice President Rahul Gandhi to clear the stand as only these two leaders are senior in party hierarchy than Singh or Dwivedi. But given the ambivalence of the Congress on a lot of issues, it is extremely unlikely that they would ever clear the stand. While the Congress President hardly speaks and never addresses a press conference except in the rarest of rare case, Rahul has deliberately kept himself aloof from nitty gritty of politics as he has more or less emerged as a social theorist rather than a politician which he actually is.

Or is it a case of floating the proverbial test balloon? Singh theorises on something, floating the balloon to test the political impact on the bidding of someone. His statements on handling of Maoist violence, taking up the case of terror accused from Azamgarh or dubbing the Batla House encounter as fake came in the recent past. After the statements, the party big wigs watch the reaction carefully, let the debate continue endlessly and witness  the confusion spread all across the political spectrum.  Often, it is Dwivedi who disassociates the party from the statements of Singh. At the end of it, no one is wiser, neither the party nor the people who are following the politics of the party but a new theory gets into the political vocabulary.

Juxtapose it with the recent statements of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and you get a clearer picture of the deliberate attempts to create confusion. The PM says he is neither in nor out of the prime ministerial race in 2014. "I am not ruling it in, I am not ruling it out," he said. Obviously, you cannot draw any meaning or sense out of the statement and it is simply status quoism and stating the obvious.  He also describes the debate on dual power centres as the creation of media and a useless debate. Is there any clarity anywhere? Isn’t there more confusion? Will anyone in Congress ever stand up and answer in a simple yes or no.

Even Rahul Gandhi, neither commits or denies anything. Interacting with the industry leaders in a much publicized event, he said the question of his becoming prime minister was irrelevant. "It is irrelevant...all smoke," the 42-year old Amethi MP said. But again, why don’t you say that you won’t become Prime Minister ever or would become one day. No one can decipher what he means from the statement made at the CII.

 I remember the press conference at the AICC headquarters in 2009 when the Congress was releasing its manifesto. Both Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi were present. But it was only after a series of direct questions that the Congress President said that Singh would be the prime ministerial candidate of the party. Remember, he had completed five years on the trot in the job and the party was practically forced to take a stand on the issue. Never had the party ever committed itself on declaring a prime ministerial or a chief ministerial candidate in the elections.

Even as there is enough fodder for the debate to rage on for the next few months, Minister and party’s face in TV debates, Manish Tiwari coined a new phrase saying that the "trinity" of Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will lead the Congress in the next Lok Sabha elections. "We will go to the people with this 'Trimurti', the Ludhiana MP and Information and Broadcasting Minister said in an interview.  For nine years, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has given us good governance and Congress president Sonia Gandhi has held the party together. Now, Rahul Gandhi has breathed life into the youth and invigorated the grassroots, said Tiwari.

So has the debate on two power centres in Congress, started by Digvijay Singh become infructuous? Instead of dual power centre, now there is the third centre also which is equally important and Rahul has got into the role effectively after becoming Vice President in the party’s Jaipur conclave early this year. Or will Dwivedi again say that what Tiwari said was his personal opinion and the party had nothing to do with it. Obviously, Dwivedi would not say anything of that sort as Tiwari, also a lawyer by training, stated the de facto position in the Congress of three power centres ever since Rahul joined politics and became an MP from Amethi a decade ago.

Coming back to the official stand of party, reflected in Dwivedi’s statement that the dual centre of power can be a model for future also, do we believe that the dual centre could be Sonia Gandhi as party President and Rahul Gandhi as Prime Minister if the party is voted back to power in the next Lok Sabha polls, whenever it is held in November this year or in April-May 2014. Or does Dwivedi mean that the Sonia-Manmohan model would continue beyond 2014 if fortune indeed favours the grand old party.

I also wonder what would happen if the Congress loses the Lok Sabha polls and sits in the Opposition. In that case, clearly Manmohan Singh would be out of equation as he cannot become an office-bearer in Congress and would no longer remain a power centre. There would be only two centres of power in that eventuality—the Congress President and the Vice President. (April 8, 2013) 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/three-power-centres-in-congress--sonia-manmohan-and-rahul.html

Early Lok Sabha elections on the horizon

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

The inevitability of an early Lok Sabha polls, probably in October-November this year has increased manifold with statements of various leaders flying thick and fast all over the country, particularly in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh, the State which holds the key to the survival of the Manmohan Singh government.

Mulayam Singh Yadav is not the only loose cannon who blows hot and cold and hot again. He criticises the Congress on any given day, threatens it with "dire consequences" the next day, but refuses to withdraw support on the third day. He has company in Union Minister and fellow leader from UP, Beni Prasad Verma, who shoots from the mouth at the slightest pretext, triggering speculations that SP could withdraw support any moment. He keeps badmouthing and abusing the SP and keeps repeating them till some spokesperson of Congress in New Delhi plays the old but predictable trick and dissociates the party from the statement of Verma.

The difference between Yadav and Verma is too stark and they are not comparable except for their verbal spat and ability to get headlines in the media. Yadav is aiming for the top most post of Prime Minister of the country and this could well be the last chance for the 73-year-old leader who willingly gave the chair in Uttar Pradesh to his son last year so that he could concentrate on the bigger political game-plan.

Verma is simply trying to become important in the eyes of his immediate boss Rahul Gandhi, who has given him a lot of importance in UP despite being an import from the SP. Rahul perhaps thought that Verma could emerge as the fulcrum of the consolidation of the Kurmi caste along with other Most Backward Classes who have been left out of the scheme of things of the Samajwadi Party. Congress has been unsuccessfully trying to revive the Bihar formula of Nitish Kumar while promoting Kurmi leader Verma, formerly in SP. But unlike in Bihar which had a space for the consolidation of Most Backward Castes (MBCs) under Nitish, UP does not have such a possibility as Bahujan Samaj Party is firmly ensconced in that space.

Congress knows that its revival in the Hindi heartland would remain a distant dream unless it does well in Uttar Pradesh. It did exceptionally well last time emerging as the largest party in terms of Lok Sabha seats in the State but lost steam in the Assembly elections in 2012, where it was thoroughly routed despite a hectic and aggressive campaign by Amethi MP and now party vice president Rahul Gandhi. Perhaps it has put its bet on the wrong candidate in UP as Verma neither has the charisma nor the popularity to take on the father-son duo of Mulayam and Akhilesh.

Political dynamics in the biggest State of UP with 80 seats in the Lok Sabha dictates that unless SP gives complete divorce to Congress-led UPA, it cannot hope to improve its performance. Party supremo Mulayam Singh also knows that only if he crosses the figure of 40 and comes close to 45 and the political situation becomes fluid, he would have a chance of consolidating the regional parties and emerge as the sole champion of the so-called Third Front to have a go at the chair for which he has been longing for long.

People no longer believe in friendly matches being played on the political arena and SP has played nicely along with Congress for five years ever since it supported the UPA-I on Indo-US nuclear deal after the Left withdrew support. So, it is certain that SP would pull the rug from under UPA, take an aggressive posture against it and only then will enter the electoral arena of UP.

Both SP and Congress are eyeing the same vote bank in Uttar Pradesh. Obviously the Yadav community is still solidly behind SP but the rest of the vote bank of the party and Congress is practically the same. If one party does well, it will be at the cost of the other. They realise it well. No wonder, both Mulayam Singh and Beni Verma are spewing fire at each other as a prelude to the break-up which could be anytime in the next few weeks.

Perhaps the break-up would take place before the Monsoon session of Parliament so that the Election Commission could take a call to hold the next parliamentary polls sometime in October or November, six months before the schedule. Add the statements of UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and other SP leaders in the equation and you get a clear message that a divorce is very much on the cards. The only question is, when.

The third party in UP-BSP-is watching the game unfold, silently. This is the typical style of party chief Mayawati. Given her vacillating approach in the past, both in the State and at the national level, she would go into the polls alone and open her cards only at the appropriate time and that will be when the results are declared.

Despite the evolving situation, it now seems certain that Congress has run out of allies for the next Lok Sabha elections. In all likelihood, the party will go alone in Tamil Nadu where the DMK withdrew support from the government in March and the possibility of tying with AIADMK looks quite remote. For decades, Congress has been the junior partner of either DMK or the AIADMK which has reduced its political space and presence in the state. Testing the political waters on its own strength would help it assess its strength and weaknesses and then it can take steps to strengthen the party.

In West Bengal, its ally Trinamool Congress has broken away-the first big party in the UPA to do so and unless something dramatic happens, Congress will contest the polls alone without an alliance. The triangular contest which seems likely in Bengal, could help revive the Left as both TMC and Congress would be fighting for the same political space.

In Bihar, Congress' alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Lok Janshakti Party broke in the last Lok Sabha elections and there is no possibility of its revival now in the next elections. Without any alliance, Congress won 2 seats in the State out of 40 and even if it had entered into the alliance as a junior partner, the seats would have remained the same. Going alone helped the party assess its strength and weaknesses and this would come good in the general elections now when the party contests all seats alone.

Perhaps Maharashtra will be the only State where Congress will have an alliance- with the Nationalist Congress Party as usual. But here, the seats are more or less divided between the four main parties — Congress and NCP on one hand and Shiv Sena BJP on the other.

The results too have been rather on the predictable lines in the last few elections with all the parties getting in and around 25 per cent of the seats each, plus or minus a few seats here and there. So, it seems that Congress is perhaps looking only at post poll alliances and no significant pre-poll alliance except in Maharashtra.

Talk to the political leaders now whether from the ruling Congress or other parties and they are practically sure that elections cannot stretch to April-May 2014 given the dynamics in UP and the compulsion of SP to pull down the government and then contest the polls. The poll bells have started ringing loud and clear. (April 1, 2013)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/early-lok-sabha-elections-on-the-horizon.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/2013-04-01-2681.html

Congress stares at early Lok Sabha polls

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

The political churning at the national level and in some of the states point to a fact which may not be music to the ears of the ruling Congress led UPA. The next Lok Sabha elections could be held earlier than April-May, 2014. The political battle for the Congress in its remaining term will now be to prevent an early Lok Sabha election even as the Opposition will press the accelerator and try to pin down the government in the next six months.

Exit of DMK at a time when the UPA is counting each supporting MP on its finger tips, has sent signals to the two most important parties supporting it from outside - Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. Obviously, they would be more assertive now as they know that if one of them goes, the government would be reduced to minority.

DMK, with 18 Lok Sabha members, did not withdraw support when CBI was breathing down the neck of its top leaders in the 2G scam and one of its key ministers, A. Raja was languishing in jail and so was the daughter of the party supremo Karunanidhi, Kanimojhi. It withdrew support on the issue of Sri Lankan Tamils, an emotive issue in the State which has potential to help the party electorally. Clearly, the DMK does not want to face the polls in Tamil Nadu as an ally of the ruling Congress as it perceives that the law of diminishing returns would apply on its poll prospects.

DMK knows what anti-incumbency did to the party two years ago in 2011 when arch rival Jayalalitha was swept to power in the Assembly polls. It also knows that 9 years of anti-incumbency at the Centre means that Congress more or less has become a liability in Tamil Nadu and it would perhaps be a better idea to fight AIADMK alone with its regional allies rather than with the ruling party at the Centre. Party chief Karunanidhi read the situation, used the Sri Lankan Tamil issue as an excuse and dumped the UPA, leaving it limping for support.

It is no secret that both BSP and the SP are supporting the UPA from outside due to the potential of the CBI to wreck havoc on them in a series of cases registered against Mulayam Singh Yadav as well as BSP chief Mayawati. What surprises me is that none of these cases have come to a close or a verdict announced even after years and years of hearings, affidavits and arguments. The CBI goes slow like a tortoise whenever the situation warrants or tightens the screw whenever these parties and their leaders go truant and make them fall in line. After all, Sanjay Dutt is not the only one who does not want to go to jail.

CBI raids at the residence of Karunanidhi's son M K Stalin soon after the party withdrew support is a clear indication how the agency has been working for a while under the UPA. Almost everyone in the government and the party, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, dissociated themselves from the raids. No one knows the truth in Stalin's case but the past conduct of CBI nevertheless had the fingers pointed at the government.

Even if we do not go deep in the past, the last example of CBI acting against political opponents was in Andhra Pradesh. CBI used its might and discovered that Jagan Mohan Reddy was involved in shady financial deals only when he was no longer a Congress MP and had floated a regional party. As long as he was in the Congress, Jagan Mohan was virtue personified, the moment he left the party, he became a persona non grata, fit for CBI action. Not only the CBI, a host of other central agencies come into picture with all sorts of cases, ensuring that Jagan languishes in jail.

The DMK withdrawal of support has clearly opened windows of opportunity for the SP and BSP. They are the two crutches on which the UPA walks and the moment, even one is removed, the government would fall on its face. They know that CBI cannot be brought in the picture now as withdrawing support would reduce the government to a minority. If the government comes to a minority and the elections announced, no investigating agency would act against them. So the Damocles Sword no longer hanging over their heads, UPA is in too vulnerable a situation at this point and may force it to rethink that advancing polls by a few months could help it forge new alliances and come back with a comfort of numbers, the way it did in 2009.

Like the DMK in Tamil Nadu, for SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, a situation is emerging where he cannot go to the polls in Uttar Pradesh with the baggage of being a Congress supporter. Remember, when SP bailed out the Manmohan Singh government in UPA I on the issue of Indo-US nuclear deal and supported it, its tally in the Lok Sabha was drastically reduced in the 2009 polls. It was the Congress which benefited from the misery of the SP, becoming the largest party in terms of seats in the Lok Sabha from Uttar Pradesh.

Yadav's entire politics is based on Congress Opposition and if he is perceived to be close to the party, his support base would shift in no time and Congress is waiting to cash on the opportunity. Aggressive anti-Congress and anti-BJP stance has to be Mulayam's USP again and being a wily politician, I suspect, he would withdraw support keeping an eye on the prospects of SP in the State which sends 80 members to the Lower House of Parliament.

Yadav had once missed the chair of Prime Minister when United Front was in power and H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujaral became prime ministers in quick succession. This time, he would like to have as many MPs as possible so that he can claim the position as the head of the Third Front or a confederation of regional parties in case there is a fluid political situation and neither NDA nor UPA is in a position to stake claim to form the next government. If SP gets over 50 seats in UP then nothing could be impossible. But for that the party will have to choose the right time to say goodbye to the UPA government and have the polls at a time of its choice.

SP warming up to the BJP, Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress warming up to the Congress and the overtures of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar towards the Congress indicate the churning of the political process with the target being the next Lok Sabha polls. The posturing of these parties may have nothing to do with their possible electoral tie-ups but indicate that in politics, positioning before an important election and sending mixed signals does help. (March 25, 2013) 

 http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/cong-stares-at-early-lok-sabha-polls.html