by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : BJP chief Amit Shah on Friday described Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s style of politics in Parliament as “undemocratic” after the opposition party created a ruckus during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech.
Shah’s comments came at a meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party Parliamentary Party here, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar told reporters. The meeting was attended by Modi too.
Slamming the Congress for disturbing Parliament over the Rafale jets deal with France, Shah explained the main points about the agreement. “But will it be good for the nation to discuss details of each and every component?”
Shah also praised the Union Budget 2018, saying it was meant to benefit the farmers and the middle class.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Employment, Opinions
Rahul Gandhi
By Amulya Ganguli,
Job creation, revamping of the education system and making India the global hub of health care are the three goals which Rahul Gandhi has set for a “new, shining” Congress, as he told a convention of NRIs in Bahrain recently.
Since there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip, it is too early to say whether his hope of being in a position to fulfil these promises will come true. But as far as the Congress is concerned, the objectives which he underlined denote a shift from the party’s earlier policies which can be said to have led to its downfall in 2014.
The leitmotiv of those policies, which were the handiwork of the Left-leaning National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by then Congress President Sonia Gandhi, was populism, which cared little for either fiscal discipline or for being in tune with the economic reforms introduced in 1991 and continued by Manmohan Singh from 2004.
Nothing exemplified the absence of monetary restraint more than Sonia Gandhi’s pet project of food security, which aimed at providing subsidised food to an estimated 67 per cent of the population at an annual cost of Rs 1.25 lakh crore. There were other such profligate initiatives as well, including the rural employment programme, which were ostensibly targeted at the poor.
But they didn’t help the party. Instead, the voters turned from the lure of doles and freebies to the prospect of employment promised by Narendra Modi. The age of subsidies provided by a paternalistic, mai-baap ki sarkar was over.
If Rahul Gandhi has understood this, it is all to the good. What his emphasis on job creation, etc., shows is a welcome change of focus from his mother’s socialistic approach (which she appears to have learnt from Indira Gandhi) to an encouragement of free enterprise, which will boost growth, which was a dirty word for the NAC’s Aruna Roy who lamented Manmohan Singh’s preoccupation with economic development rather than with welfare measures.
It was the objection of crypto-communists like her which made the government of the time take its “foot off the accelerator of reforms”, as former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram subsequently regretted. The Congress is now paying the political cost of that mistake.
Rahul Gandhi’s task, therefore, is to undo that lapse of judgement. But it will not be easy because his mother is not the only “socialist” in the party. The Congress has always been uneasy about the economic reforms as it believed that they benefited only the capitalists. Rahul’s “suit-boot ki sarkar” jibe against the Modi government is a reflection of that mindset.
Yet, if he is interested in reducing unemployment, there is no option for him but to enlist the support of the suited and booted private sector in order to increase its share of investment. He will also have to encourage foreign investment. As of now, the Congress chief has not been too forthcoming with his economic views, concerned as he is with countering the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) propaganda against his dynastic lineage and his party’s supposedly pro-Muslim inclinations.
One reason why he may not have articulated his economic thinking with greater clarity is probably that the Congress will then have to come out virtually endorsing the BJP’s pro-market line with an emphasis on industrial and infrastructural development.
Indeed, there is nowadays little difference in the outlook of the various parties on this score with the earlier focus on a controlled economy with the public sector being perched on the “commanding heights”, to use Indira Gandhi’s phrase, being replaced by a preference for an open market with the private sector playing a leading role.
From whatever little that Rahul has said so far on the economy, he seems to prefer small and medium industries rather than large ones, apparently because the former can generate more employment than the large, automated factories with their component of robots.
But as long as he steers the Congress away from its 1955 goal of ushering in a “socialistic pattern” of society, he will be a true inheritor of Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision of an advanced country where dams — standing for industries — will be seen as the “temples of a new India”.
For Nehru’s great grandson, the coming months will provide an opportunity to eradicate the party’s two major mistakes which enabled the BJP to move from the margins of politics to centre-stage. These were, first, the Shah Bano episode in the mid-1980s which tended to substantiate the BJP’s charge of Muslim appeasement against the Congress; and, secondly, the stalling of economic reforms in the last two years of the Manmohan Singh government which boosted Modi’s prospects in 2014.
Even as Rahul’s temple visits aim at robbing the BJP of its monopolistic claims on Hinduism, he will also have to pick up the pieces which the Congress foolishly let fall from its hands at a time when poverty was being reduced at the fastest-ever rate, as between 2005-06 and 2011-12, by reaffirming the party’s commitment to economic reforms.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, Finance, News, Politics
Rahul Gandhi
New Delhi : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Sunday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for only giving empty slogans and said the government utilised only 7 per cent of the Rs 9,860 crore allotted for the Smart Cities scheme.
“Dear Modi bhakts (followers), out of 9,860 crores for the Smart Cities only 7 per cent has been used. China is out competing us while your master gives us empty slogans. Please watch this video and advise him to focus on what matters – job creation for India,” Gandhi tweeted.
He also attached a link to the documentary “Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware”.
The Congress leader’s remarks comes a day after government data pointed out severe under-utilisation of alloted funds under the government’s ambitious project of Smart Cities scheme.
Only seven per cent of Rs 9,860 crore or about Rs 645 crore released to 60 cities under the smart cities project has been utilised so far, according to data of the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Prashant Sood and Sidhartha Dutta,
New Delhi : Opposition parties face a daunting task to check the BJP’s rise and expansion under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the coming year presents them opportunities to do so in eight states that go to the polls. It will also test them for their ability to build up the momentum against the BJP in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha poll.
Much will depend on the Congress Party’s performance in these state polls, as also the initiatives that its new President, Rahul Gandhi, takes in reaching out to other opposition parties.
Elections will be held in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura and Mizoram in 2018 — and in the four big states it is almost a direct contest between the BJP and the Congress, while in Tripura the battle will be between the CPI-M and the BJP.
With the Congress losing several elections over the past over three years, there is already talk of “collective leadership” in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and suggestions against making it a presidential-style electoral contest against Modi.
The year saw 18 opposition parties coming together to put up common candidates for the presidential and vice presidential elections. But these parties, which included the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) did not come together for the Gujarat assembly polls which the Congress narrowly lost.
The 18 parties came together after the Uttar Pradesh elections that the BSP and the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance fought separately and lost badly to the BJP.
NCP leader Tariq Anwar said the Congress lost about 12 seats in Gujarat because it did not ally with his party and the BSP. “They should not repeat the same mistake in the states going to the polls next year. If the Congress does well in these states, it will be a big boost ahead of the 2019 elections,” he said.
Anwar said next year’s state elections will give a clear picture about what will happen in 2019. “The elections will be a big challenge for the Congress and the opposition parties,” he told IANS.
Opposition parties, specially in states with multi-polar contests, have competing interests and any proposal to put up common candidates against the BJP in 2019 elections will need a lot of accommodation and hard work.
The Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party are seen as adversaries in Uttar Pradesh and the Left, the Congress and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. The Congress is an adversary of the Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana, of the Telanaga Rashtra Samiti in Telangana and of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha.
It is apparently in view of these contradictions and the lacklustre performance of the Congress since its debacle in 2014 that Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien called for a “collective leadership” to bring all opposition parties together against the BJP in each state.
He has said that that the opposition should play to its strengths and make the Lok Sabha elections a sum of state elections.
Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agrawal, MP, said “it was compulsion for the opposition parties to come together before the Lok Sabha elections” and parties such as BJD and Aam Aadmi Party should be part of the larger grouping.
“We will try that all opposition parties come together before the Lok Sabha elections. When Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister, a similar situation was before the country. All parties came together and she lost the election. History has to repeat itself,” Agrawal told IANS.
T.K.S. Elangovan, a leader of Tamil Nadu’s DMK, said Rahul Gandhi’s campaign during the Gujarat polls had boosted Congress morale and stressed that in the upcoming elections, preparations should start much earlier.
“All secular parties should come together to fight the communal forces. They are trying to force Hindutva upon us. They are also spreading hatred,” he said.
Elangovan also said that the Modi government has not delivered on its promises such as employment and improving the lives of the people. “We need to expose their propaganda,” he said.
The CPI-M’s Mohammed Salim said the secular parties “should discover an alternative narrative and strategy against the communal forces and they should be defeated”.
CPI leader D. Raja said social forces have also to be mobilised, besides political parties, in the fight against the BJP and the Sangh Parivar, the umbrella organisation of the BJP and its right wing affiliates.
“A new economic and social narrative has to be devised to counter these forces,” he said.
On the flip side, Janata Dal-United leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s return to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance earlier this year came as a blow to the opposition parties as he was seen as a leader who could emerge as a challenger to Modi.
RJD supremo Lalu Prasad’s conviction in a case relating to the multi-crore rupee fodder scam has also come as a blow to the efforts towards opposition unity.
But a comforting factor for the Congress and some other opposition parties has been the acquittal of all the accused in the 2G spectrum case, on which the BJP had launched a sustained campaign against Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.
There would be many more chapters to this tale and it would be interesting to see the outcome towards the end of 2018.
(Prashant Sood can be contacted at prashant.s@ians.in and Sidhartha Dutta at sidthartha.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Asim Khan,
New Delhi : On the 13th day of the Mahabharata war, Dronacharya organised the Kaurava army into a “chakravyuh” formation to challenge the Pandavas.
With the great warrior Arjuna away, there was none among the Pandavas who could counter this. Then came Abhimanyu, Arjuna’s son who knew how to break the “chakravyuh” (labyrinth) and sought permission from Yudhishthira to lead the battle.
Abhimanyu entered the chakravyuh by defeating seven great warriors on the Kaurava side, guarding the seven fronts of the formation. He killed several princes and kings, besides a large number of Kaurava soldiers, sending jitters down the enemy lines. Then flouting all rules of war, a number of great warriors, including Karna, Drona, Jayadrath, Ashwathama and Kripacharya, attacked Abhimanyu together.
Abhimanyu fell but not before upsetting the Kauravas’ plans to wipe out the Pandava army.
Circa 2017: In the Gujarat Assembly elections, it was not a battle between the newly-elected Congress President Rahul Gandhi versus Prime Minister Narendra Modi — it was Rahul versus the entire government machinery and more.
The entire Modi cabinet camped in the state and Union ministers conducted door-to-door campaign.
The Congress could not boast of any star campaigner besides Rahul Gandhi. After Shankarsinh Vaghela deserted the party, there was no leader of stature whom the party could project as its face. It was an unequal battle from the time the election schedule was announced.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), ruling in the state for 22 long years, can rightfully boast of a strong cadre on the ground and at the booth level, in a state that is called the “Hindutva lab”. The Congress cannot match it.
Then, the Election Commission (EC) did what many called an “unprecedented” act of withholding announcing dates for Gujarat elections while declaring details of Himachal Pradesh’s polls. Thus the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) did not come into force in the state as it did in Himachal.
Chief Election Commissioner A.K. Joti could not give a credible explanation for this and mostly resorted to technicalities in response to a volley of questions from a surprised media.
Joti cited flood relief as one reason for delaying the Gujarat polls. But in 2014, when Jammu and Kashmir had not recovered, even partly, from the devastating floods, the same poll panel did not hold that relief work would be affected by elections.
The opposition’s allegations and media’s scepticism over the EC’s neutrality gained currency as Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced sops for Gujarat worth hundreds of crores of rupees, including a Ro-Ro ferry service in the 15-odd day window the state got before the model code came into force.
However, some people also attributed Joti’s concern for Gujarat to the fact that he had worked in the state for a long time in several key positions, including as the chief secretary, when Modi was Chief Minister.
It cannot be discounted that Modi hails from Gujarat and hence the people of the state have an emotional connect with him. Besides, Rahul Gandhi, comparably a political novice if not an amateur, who has held no position ever in a government, is no match for Modi’s oratorical skills that can make huge crowds sway to his tune.
But during the election campaign, in rally after rally and speech after speech, Gandhi emerged as an evolved politician — a far cry from the “Pappu” (a colloquial meaning dumb kid), as his detractors repeatedly called him. Even its ally Shiv Sena asked the BJP to stop calling Rahul by the disparaging moniker and to take him seriously.
Gandhi studiedly avoided any contentious topic and personal jibes against Modi, such as “Maut ka saudagar” (merchant of death) and the like that his mother, Sonia Gandhi, had used in a previous election. He focused on issues and attacked Modi and his government on these alone.
Against all odds and in spite of the ruling BJP’s full might — which did not fight shy of using religiously divisive language to the hilt — the Congress showed a marked improvement in both its tally and vote percentage, at the BJP’s expense.
Of course, there was also a strategy in place on the ground from ticket distribution to synchronising with dynamic caste equations — spearheaded by Congress’ old fox, Ashok Gehlot. And, of course, there was anti-incumbency feeling against the BJP, with palpable disenchantment among the masses, especially in rural areas. But it was not easy to translate this into votes for the Congress.
Gandhi, through his visibly mature demeanour and careful selection of words, successfully tapped this anger to a considerable extent. Despite repeated insinuations, he did not utter a single contentious word against Modi.
In one rally he declared: “No matter what they call me, I will not speak any derogatory language. This is Congress culture handed down to us by the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardal Patel… We will defeat Modiji with love.”
In the Mahabharta, the Pandavas could not match the mighty Kauravas’ onslaught on chakravyuh day and suffered heavily. Abhimanyu, despite knowing fully well that he would not be able to come out of the chakravyuh, fulfilled his dharma of fighting till he fell.
The Congress showed a remarkable improvement as compared to the 2012 election. Its seat count climbed to around 80 from 61 in 2012 and its vote share rose to around 42 per cent from 39 per cent, within striking distance of the Gujarat throne. Modi would do well to heed this rejuventated Abhimanyu of the Grand Old Party. The battle may have been lost, but the war is on.
(Asim Khan can be contacted on mohd.a@ians.in)
—IANS
