There is nothing wrong for any political party to have an aspiration to win elections and come to power. Here, the means are as important as the ends (that is to come to power). The means are nothing but strategies (by way of policy declaration) that each political party adopts. Let’s take the age-old Congress party for instance: the Congress president Shri Rahul Gandhi does not seem to have any one consistent strategy/policy to take to people to impress them to vote for his party. He has no slogan or a one-liner like Shri Modi ji has now and had earlier in 2014 : ‘sab ka sath sab ka vikas’ to enthuse voters. Of course, Rahul Gandhi has tried his best to invent one. His eureka-slogan: ‘chowkidar chor hai’ have no buyers as prime minister has a spartan image which never seems to dent. So, the Congress president’s rantings are hollow.
Coming to mahagatbhandhan, it is a loosely held group of parties and the leaders in it are preoccupied in their own states on strategizing how to win the maximum members of parliament to stake a claim (probably for prime minister post) later at the Centre. Though held loosely they have a strong lofty desire to replace PM-Modi. As Shekhar Gupta, reputed journalist, pointed out: the mahagatbhandhan is like ‘Shiv ji ki Baraat’ (i.e. bhoot, preytaganas dancing) with no leader (like Shiv ji to control). The mahagatbhandhan has no spokesperson on their behalf to counter the opponent or to project holistically their view. It seems to be a bunch of wobbler-politicians who have no sound principles.
Hence, in the present scenario, the stymied Congress is filling the place of the opposition to the government. The party has got a new lease of life after winning the three Hindi heartland states. Mamata Banerjee’s recent adamant stand and protest/Dharna on CBI questioning the West Bengal Police Commissioner was a damp squib revealing her greed to occupy the PM’s seat after elections than to score a browny point for the Gatbhandhan. She should know India is not West Bengal to have a maverick leader at the helm.
The recent tweet of Rahul Gandhi to Nitin Gadkari (on 4th Feb) is noteworthy. The background of the tweet was Nitin Gadkari advising his Karyakartas to take care of their home first before managing issues pertaining to the country. There’s an old adage in the Indian households that- ‘those managing the home-affairs well, can manage outside affairs equally good’.
The media twisted Gadkari’s advise to the cadre to suit their (media persons’) whims of targeting the prime minister or so. Rahul Gandhi, going by the convoluted view dished out by the media, tweeted to Nitin Gadkari, “Gadkari ji, compliments! You are the only one in the BJP with some guts. Please also comment on : 1. The #RafaleScam & Anil Ambani 2. Farmers’s Distress 3. Destruction of Institutions’, to which Nitin Gadkari gave a fitting rebuttal-tweet saying that he did not need a certificate on his courage and he also found fault with the Congress president for going with media analogy.
It goes without saying that Rahul Gandhi’s advisers are pretty bad in strategizing. The number-1 of Rahul Gandhi’s tweet: The #RafaleScam & Anil Ambani- would only bounce back and fall flat on the Congress president’s face. The word : “scam” brings back the memories of UPA-II which the voters of late are forgetting. Does he want to remind people Congresses’’ scam-tainted rule? That way, is he scaring people? Many Ambani-types have been propped up only in Congresses’ rule paving the way for crony- capitalism in India. Not the other way round. The Congress never tried to bring in Bankruptcy and Insolvency Code as the BJP did.
The universal basic income is again an ill-advised measure and a hasty-step. The party would like to offer minimum of Rs. 10,000/- to the poor citizen to fill the gap of haves and have-nots, if the party came to power. As an implementation procedure, the party says, in case, if a person is earning the wage of Rs 4,000/-, they would top him up with Rs 6,000/-. Similarly, for other wage-earners who are below Rs. 10,000/-. If that would be the idea, people whose wages are below ten thousand rupees would more willingly sit at home and get the bulk rather than the petty top-up. From where does the party get this money? By taxing the rich businessmen? As Nitin Pai, Director of the Takshashila Institute tweeted: “Taxing the rich heavily in the 1970s did nothing for the poor, but impoverished India”. When someone pointed out that Rahul Gandhi was following the French economist Thomas Piketty’s ideas, Pai said again in his tweet: “India is not Europe. We need massive economic growth, massive employment creation. Clever ways to redistribute income must come after clever ways to create more income”.
Sonia Gandhi went by the western Leftist-Socialist concepts in UPA-II policymaking. Rahul Gandhi, assumes like any other European that India is in an utter state of poverty and that poverty has to be addressed by distribution of money is demeaning the poor of the nation who are willing to toil to get an honourable wage. Here, he is acting in the same way as his mother once did. The Centre’s last ‘please all’ budget caters to different sections in the society to give a helping hand. This last budget of the government seemed to have been done after a thorough research and planning.
