Congress reshuffling an empty deck?
The clock is ticking for the ruling Congress party. Ever since the national auditor’s report blew the lid off the 2G spectrum scandal, the second term of the UPA government has been clouded by incessant talk of premature general elections or who will lead India in 2014.
As rumours do the rounds of a possible reshuffle of the Congress party after the Budget session, one gets the sense that India’s grand old party is starting to prepare for national elections, even if they are two years away. And rightly so, especially after its disastrous performance in Uttar Pradesh, the state that sends the largest number of lawmakers to parliament. While no political party is likely to secure majority if national elections were to be held today, regional parties could hold sway.
The Congress’ present situation is a throwback to the 1960s when the party was trying to revitalise its functioning in the face of declining popularity and vote share. Indira Gandhi ruled India for eleven consecutive years, followed by another term later that was cut short by her assassination. After her son Rajiv came to power and his destiny followed his mother’s, the Congress returned to power for only one term until the UPA government came to power in 2004.
This time it is unlikely the reshuffle will actually revive the party — with a generation of leaders close to retirement and a severe shortage of mid-level talent, Congress has few obvious options. There is still little clarity about succession.
It is also unlikely Manmohan Singh will be the prime ministerial candidate again. There is uncertainty over whether party president Sonia Gandhi’s son Rahul can run both the party and a government, if required. Nor does the party nurture its leaders to lead from the front. And with no other option in sight, Sonia Gandhi ailing and unwilling to lead, and the current PM conspicuously inert, the Congress party is increasingly faceless.
The Congress’ leadership vacuum could boost the fortunes of regional political parties, their rising power evident in the recently concluded assembly elections. As for the BJP, which has its eyes on New Delhi ever since its 2004 India Shining campaign bombed, there could be two scenarios — elections could cost the party dear if it doesn’t put its own house in order; or the unpredictable Indian voter might just have a typical mood swing and decide to elect the pro-Hindu party once again.
Zardari’s India visit: Much ado about nothing?
As the hype over Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s India visit settles, critics and the general public are wondering whether the so-called dargah diplomacy could be a game changer in India-Pakistan ties?
Zardari’s trip to India, the first by Pakistan’s head of state since Pervez Musharraf’s visit in 2005, was overshadowed by the spectre of Hafiz Saeed, who had a $10 million American bounty placed on his head this week.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told Zardari it is imperative the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks are brought to justice.
New Delhi’s insistence on punishing Saeed, the suspected mastermind of the Mumbai attacks, may put further pressure on Islamabad to take action against one of its most notorious Islamist leaders. But the Pakistani establishment has maintained there is no concrete evidence against Saeed.
It remains to be seen whether Saeed, whose whereabouts in Pakistan are no secret, will be reined in. After all, he has been cleared by Pakistani courts.
But can Zardari do something in the interest of bilateral diplomacy? He has his own problems to deal with back home, including a widening rift with the powerful military establishment. His prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani may lose office if convicted by the Supreme Court for his failure to re-open corruption cases against Zardari.
For now, Pakistan’s strategy seems to be ‘wait and watch’ or perhaps pray, which is what Zardari did.
Bobby, both the leaders are vegetarian. Dr Singh eats frugally. the South Indian dosa was on the menu.
Allies fretting over issues a warning sign for Congress
The past few days have been quite busy for the government. As yet another spiritual leader started yet another “movement” against corruption in the government and bureaucracy, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was at the chic French seaside resort of Cannes, holding discussions with heads of state of the G20 nations on how to deal with the crisis in Greece.
Back home, another petrol price hike left the general public seething as the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party went on the offensive yet again. Singh put up a firm stand when he said that the country should move more in the direction of deregulation. It was a situation he has found himself in regularly during his second term, that of political versus economic compulsions.
Talking about political compulsions, the biggest problem Singh and his government seem to be facing right now is not the opposition or a frustrated middle class bogged down by double-digit inflation and price rise for most food products and essential commodities, but an ally who has been known to have her way within the UPA coalition.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress holds 19 very crucial seats for the ruling alliance in parliament. So when she threatened to walk out of the UPA over the petrol price hike and sought increased communication between the Centre and allies before taking any vital decision, the first order of business for the PM after his return was to meet her and some of her party members.
To say, however, that she could not get a commitment out of him to roll back on the hike and that other allies within the UPA did not share her opinion, would be to miss the point. Even if one discounts the fact that she may have managed to get increased sops for her state out of this meet, the larger issue here is that the Congress finds itself on increasingly shaky ground as state and parliamentary elections come closer.
As if unpopularity among the general public and an assertive BJP was not enough, it may now need to deal with the prospect of unhappy partners ruining its chances in the upcoming polls. If it hopes to come back to power for a third term, the “Grand Old Party” of India has to ensure threats by Mamata and those by the DMK earlier this year do not become a regular occurrence.
India’s chief executive is an expert economist no doubt but had no experience to be an expert Administrator. To run a country as vast as India with multidimensional problematic issues like External terrorist attack added with more dangerous home grown terrorist attack throughout the length and breadth of the country. An estimated one million home grown terrorist s are active in entire country. To hide the fact of these home grown terrorist activities fearing US may not Put India in the terrorist list, this they have been doing since long.
Whenever Indian government thought of more danger it to hide blamed Pakistan or the then East Pakistan now Bangladesh. Even now the same technique especially now Bangladesh is accused leaving aide Maoist terrorist.
However, the Prime Minister has agreed and made statement that Maoist has become even danger for the center. From relevant reports it transpires that Maoists have extended their operation throughout India Including the capital. The vital Failures at all level of the Government to curb the home grown terrorist activities is kept hidden and issues very stinking criticism of other world countries suffering the same Problem.
Then, today India is suffering from a decease that has no medicine and remedy “corruption. It is so unfortunate that beside entire state administration of India the Justice Department, business circle, eve public at foot path level are victims of the decease.
To fight this decease the government has to find out the corrupts and kill them to curb the spreading of the decease as China does from time to time, but India being a democratic country would not do that. It has to be understood that when the state machinery gets irreparably damaged then what is left for the country to do. Such morbid failure of the government results in stoppage to function the country’s day today affairs.
Now, if we take the Justice Department of the country and judge from the reports gathered from the articles of writers of the country reveals The Judges of all level have gone corrupt. Therefore one can buy the verdict of even high court and Supreme Court, what more is left in a country to give to the citizen. It is India’s basic Human rights failure to ensure. Equal Justice for all is unknown in India now.
The other uncontrolled problems are land grabbing, Water grabbing, sea demarcation grabbing of weak neighboring countries, then Prostitution, forced child labor, bonded age long labor, Political dissensions, demands of secessions, etc, etc.
To cut a long story short, I put a question to the world Community to Judge. What good is the economic boom of India when the fruit of the economic boom is not accessible to the people of all level up to the grass root?
May be China has the same problem. But China is communist country where as India is a democratic Country.
Finally, will the Government of India wake up to save the country that is heading to be a failed country for the ineptness of the administration or the PM of the country will allow it to dive into deep sea never ever to show its face again Mighty India. The question is for whom the bell tolls?
PM, Sheila Dikshit caught in the eye of another storm
By Annie Banerji
With greying hair, humbly garbed in a sari and a smile that adorns her grandmother-like appearance, 73-year-old Sheila Dikshit finds herself in the spotlight over the Comptroller & Auditor General’s (CAG) report, right after combating the Shunglu Committee report.
The CAG had hauled up the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for the appointment of Suresh Kalmadi, now in jail, as chairman of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee in 2004 despite “serious objections” from within the government.
The auditor also held the chief minister of New Delhi culpable for her “active involvement” in causing a loss of almost $6.9 million in wasteful expenditure due to “irregularities”, “favouritism” and “bias” in sanction of contracts for projects in the capital’s beautification process last year.
The report also slammed the government on select projects that led to a loss of $111 million.
“We demand that Sheila Dikshit should resign, and if she does not, she should be sacked,” said Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad.
“Such huge allocations would not have been possible without the consent of the cabinet committee, cabinet sub-committee, group of ministers (GoMs), expenditure committee, finance committee and the PMO. Their role should be probed,” he added.
But this blog is about Sheila Dixit.
Whether the BJP has an ulterior motive or not or maybe even the CAG, the Congress better show that it is trying to get to the bottom of it. So far it has been content throwing muck back at the BJP.
National money goes down the drain. But its ok if the BJP is also corrupt? Red herrings all!
Civil society points finger at PM in 2G scandal
By Annie Banerji
He can run, but he definitely cannot hide. The Central Information Commission (CIC) has ordered the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to release information regarding correspondence between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former telecom minister A Raja related to the 2G spectrum allocation scandal, which caused a loss of up to $39 billion to the national exchequer, in response to an applicant under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
The prime minister has seen his popularity slump since he first came to power in 2004 with a downpour of high-profile corruption scandals, paralysed policymaking and a slow paced economy due to high inflation and interest rates. He finds himself under the scrutiny of not only opposition parties, but also civil society.
A civil society movement against corruption headed by popular Gandhian social activist Anna Hazare received nationwide support in April proving to the government that the masses do not treat corruption with nonchalance.
Now, the government is trying to avoid a repeat of April’s anti-graft protests by talking to a panel of civil society activists, including Hazare, who had forced it to fast-track a decades-old proposition for an independent ombudsman to investigate graft cases in high places. But the negotiations have seen divergent views emerge over the contents of the legislation, most importantly whether the prime minister should be investigated by the ombudsman.
Keeping this in view, the prime minister’s address to electronic media editors in February regarding his exchanges with A. Raja, the prime accused in the 2G scandal, comes to light. With no threat of an authoritative body to investigate his suspected role in the spectrum situation, Manmohan Singh had timidly refuted all claims of being in the wrong of matters.
“Who got the licences… how first-come-first-served was implemented…this was never discussed with me nor was it brought to the Cabinet. This was exclusively telecom minister’s decision,” he was quoted as saying in the interaction with the editors.
As long as we don’t know how to elect good people to govern us no body can save us, No law or bills like Lokpal bill or RTI bill will help us. As any thing implemented is governed by people who matters.
We cannot expect a better Prime Minister when his working environment is managed by the right or wrong people elected by us.
Indian politicians and the art of the tell-all memoir
Along with the likes of Shakespeare, Britain has a longstanding literary tradition of a different kind — the explosive political biography, memoir or diary.
Britons can gorge on countless books of their lawmakers who wash their dirty linen — and other people’s linen — in public. The diaries of Alan Clark in the 1980s gave readers a glimpse of the tears and infighting in Margaret Thatcher’s government as well as his own amorous conquests.
The diaries of Alastair Campbell, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s press man, were a sensation, and were followed by the memoirs of Blair himself where he described his relationship with Chancellor Gordon Brown as like being “a couple who loved each other, arguing over whose career should come first”, then calling Brown a “strange guy” with zero emotional intelligence.
But while British parliamentarians willingly divulge what they had for breakfast, in India, the world’s biggest democracy, the opposite is true. Tidbits of news might make for good gossip in the corridors of power in New Delhi, but they rarely get a public airing.
A sizeable chunk of Indian public opinion also says it’s not anyone’s business what their politicians really think or what they get up to in their personal lives. Debate about prominent figures in public life is rare. Witness the furore after the publication of a biography which suggested Mahatma Gandhi was bisexual, which sparked moves to make insulting Gandhi a jailable offence.
Last year, the Congress party came down like a ton of bricks on a Spanish novel “El Sari Rojo” (The Red Sari), purporting to dramatise the “tale of the Nehru-Gandhi family told through the story of Sonia Gandhi”.
What a time it would be for Indian politicians to follow the British example. The country is in the grip of what is probably the biggest corruption scandal India has ever seen, which may have drained up to $39 billion from the public exchequer and which has battered Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government. Imagine a tell-all memoir by Singh — who unlike his European and American counterparts almost never gives interviews.
The common perception is that Indian politicians are ugly, lying scoundrels. So when they finally get pushed out of public life, we say “good riddance”. No one wants to have anything to do with their lives afterwards so their self boasting bundles of lies don’t sell.
Manmohan Singh: middle-class darling no more?
For nearly two decades, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was the darling of the Indian middle classes, who saw the Oxford- and Cambridge-trained economist as a rare alternative to the stereotype of the uneducated, corrupt and criminal politician.
That love affair had begun to fray at the edges of late, after Singh’s perceived inaction over several corruption scandals that had emerged in his second term as premier, but now, it may finally be over.
As thousands of mostly middle-class Indians across the country demonstrated in support of veteran social activist Anna Hazare’s hunger strike against corruption, the anti-government and anti-Singh mood was very much palpable.
The middle classes have a poor voting record, but their influence on public discourse is highly out of proportion to their electoral strength and a shift in their allegiance should be worrisome for both Singh and his Congress party.
Singh has lost the only popular election he has contested and arguably, his only constituency is the middle class. His greatest advantage vis-a-vis potential rivals within and outside his party is the impression there is no alternative to this honest and upright leader.
That image has largely been sustained because of its currency amongst the middle classes who have been the biggest beneficiaries of Singh’s policies to open up the economy.
His presence had helped bring to Congress several middle-class voters who had previously supported the market-friendly policies of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
MM Singh WAS a good economist, BUT he has BETRAYED his country by being a lame duck and puppet in hands of Soniya, the corrupt, and Rahul, the fool. PM ‘requesting’ Rahul to be next PM….hah?? PM says on floor of parliament that he don’t know of corruption in his ministries….what kind of PM is he then…it is his job to know for god sake….inflation, security, food, roads, he has failed on every front…only success is corruption front…he is PM of THE MOST CORRUPT government ever in India…I feel ashamed, because of our PM, in front of my American colleagues
Congress’ 2007 leadership whispers underscore 2011 election dangers
Rumblings within the ruling Congress party that suggested the “jettison” of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the party’s electoral failures in state elections in 2007, cited in a secret diplomatic cable published on Monday, are a timely reminder of the dangerous implications of failure for Congress in elections this month.
The electorates of Assam, Kerala, Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal will go the polls this month to elect new state legislatures, in the first tests of public confidence in India’s ruling party that has been implicated in a string of multi-billion-dollar corruption scandals over the past nine months.
Singh, a 78-year-old technocrat and economic reformist, had his leadership questioned by senior aides to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who mooted a more politically sellable replacement following electoral defeats in Punjab and Uttarakhand, detailed a U.S. state department cable accessed by WikiLeaks and published by The Hindu newspaper.
The Prime Minister, who has seen his previously impeccable reputation tarnished by a number of government scams committed on his watch over the past nine months, may find himself under similar pressure from the party’s “old guard” — the socialist bloc more closely aligned with the party’s left-leaning past — should Congress stumble in the upcoming elections.
“Following a string of recent local-level electoral defeats in Mumbai, Uttarakhand, and Punjab, Sonia Gandhi and her personal advisors are very concerned that the impending Uttar Pradesh elections will turn out horribly for Congress. As a result, some are advocating that she jettison Prime Minister Singh… and put a more saleable political face at the head of the government,” wrote the U.S. embassy’s Charge D’Affaires Geoffrey Pyatt in the secret cable.
“What seems clear in the aftermath of recent polls is that the reform cadre of Manmohan Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and Finance Minister Chidambaram are politically diminished, Sonia Gandhi’s inner coterie is deeply worried, and the old line Congress and their Communist fellow-travelers are empowered.”
Will Singh add Pakistan to his list of triumphs?
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has long wanted to secure what his dozen predecessors have failed to achieve: lasting peace with arch rival Pakistan. But, if the WikiLeaks cables are to be believed, Singh probably remains isolated in pursuing his dream.
In a week when officials from both countries meet to resume talks broken off after the 2008 Mumbai attacks and when the two prime ministers play “cricket diplomacy“, have the chances for peace improved?
There seems to be too much loaded against the initiative. The enmity between the two nations is rooted in their very existence and peaceniks are a handful. There is little political gain and much risk to be had from pursuing peace.
Both sides have hardened positions on Kashmir, the Himalayan territory that is claimed in full but ruled in part by both. The two countries have fought two of their three wars over the region. New Delhi accuses Islamabad of aiding separatists and wants this to end. Pakistan denies any help apart from moral and diplomatic support.
And while Singh appears to be the only Indian leader the Pakistanis respect and trust, he has little political clout. His Congress party and the government run on the dictates of powerful party chief Sonia Gandhi. A series of corruption scandals and high prices have eroded his image as a leader above India’s murky politics and put him in the opposition’s firing line.
Singh cannot anyway expect much enthusiasm from the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Hindu nationalist party which eyes Pakistan with deep suspicion. The BJP has in the past played up tensions with Islamabad and would jump on the government at the slightest hint of mischief from across the border.
Nor is the civilian government in Pakistan particularly in a position to push for peace. Indian policy is made in Rawalpindi, the headquarters of the Pakistani army, rather than in Islamabad, critics say, and they have little desire to mend relations with India. There have been past instances where the army has scuppered deals.
The bitter truth behind BJP’s deafening budget silence
To some, the parliamentary walkout by India’s opposition prior to the vote on the country’s annual budget motion marked the failure of India’s ruling Congress party to engage with its primary adversary, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), over its claims that the Prime Minister had lied to parliament to protect his own reputation.
To others, the sight of BJP leader Sushma Swaraj leading her MPs out of the chamber as Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee prepared to deliver the most important parliamentary bill of the year encapsulated the sorry state of India’s increasingly bitter partisan politics that show no signs of repair since trumpeting corruption became the opposition’s raison d’etre. Swaraj would later tell The Hindu that her walkout was to avoid disrupting the passage of the bill, but the damning point rang out loud and clear: the opposition had decided the corruption drumbeat was more important than the budget.
Mukherjee had earlier pleaded with senior BJP leaders to allow the budget to be debated prior to any discussion on a parliamentary privilege motion submitted against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by Swaraj, promising a two-and-a-half hour debate on the issue after the budget had passed.
But as the budget was given precedent over the privilege motion, out trooped the opposition in protest, leaving a half-empty chamber to pass the bill that will keep the country financed on April 1.
India’s parliament was paralysed in November by opposition protests demanding an inquiry into allegations a minister had lost the exchequer up to $39 billion in a telecom spectrum scam, which eventually resulted in the entire winter session being abandoned. Since it reopened in February, after extensive negotiations between Congress and the BJP, various protests from the opposition over other corruption charges have resulted in adjournments and cancellation of parliamentary business.
With a slew of economic reforms seen crucial to India’s continued growth momentum gathering dust as MPs exchange insults and chants across the floor of both houses of parliament, the partisan politics that have turned India’s much-vaunted parliamentary democracy into a slanging match between government and opposition risk ruining far more than just the reputation of the primary belligerents.
India is witnessing the most corrupt and arrogant government meeting the most week and divided opposition. The prime minister says on the floor of parliament that he is not aware of most of corruption charges and opposition has not been able to put enough pressure on president to get the governmnent adjourned or at least sack the current PM. Soniya has broken all records in corruption that were set by her mother in law back then. God save us!!
