Saturday, May 26, 2018

Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Only Congress minus Gandhi Family can challenge BJP' that was published in Newsband


Only Congress minus Gandhi Family can challenge BJP
What tactics will the Opposition parties use against the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election? How will they try to stop the BJP from getting a second consecutive term? The post-poll alliance stitched together by the Congress with the Janata Dal (Secular) allowed for the swearing-in of JD(S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy as Chief Minister in Karnataka. Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi is getting on very well with Mayawati. Anyway, the coming together of the Congress and the BSP was set much earlier. An SP-BSP-Congress-RLD alliance is being speculated in Uttar Pradesh. Thus the Opposition parties elsewhere have found a way to make the most of any anti-BJP sentiment.
But the real test for a Congress-led Opposition is to generate an agreed policy programme that will have the support of all the disparate groups. These parties have an antipathy to the BJP, while others have allied with the BJP in the past. In many cases, electoral rivalry, and not ideological dissimilitude with the BJP, is the reason for fighting it.
Congress should drop its big brother role as it is headed by immature and less experienced leader like Rahul Gandhi and be prepared to accept secondary role in large states with a more senior and matured leaders like Shared Pawar, Mamata, Mayawati, Mulayam and others. A mixture of regional parties and Congress, if they agree on a common agenda against BJP, might be accepted during 2019 Parliament Election. But this reminds the print media, television media and Indian People those days of Deve Gowda and Gujral government and UPA I and UPA II wherein the growth of country in all fields went 25 years back economy was immobile and standstill, corruption flourished in geometrical ratio.
Indeed now economy is progressing not leaps and bounds but step by step and there is certainly less corruption. A viable alternative for BJP is not a bunch of regional parties but Congress Party alone should revive itself all over India by freeing themselves from Gandhi family. The Congress Party should realize that though they may have all India presence their influence is minimal.
One could only liken the alliance to a sack of sour berries that would all run away in various directions once unbundled. Any trivial trigger can be its undoing. People know this and would not vote for an unstable patch-work of 'colourful' political parties that are constantly at each other's throat and are only interested in amassing wealth through corruption. For the very first time in over a decade and half we have had five years of clean governance, most especially after a decade of unusually humongous and blatant display of malfeasance all the way from the PMO that included many of the cabinet ministers. People do not want to go back to those levels and know what would be in store if this medley of muddled parties is allowed to regain governance. Any number of articles, op-eds, or edits would not change this ground reality. One is indeed amused at the flagrant spectacle to convert defeat into victory in Karnataka and extrapolate it to general elections.
Political parties work for their political gains. Whether BJP wins again in 2019 or Congress-led front or any third front is emerging. One thing is clear, our country is facing severe leadership crisis. What we need today is visionary leaders who will guide citizens towards growth and development. Other countries like Germany, Japan, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia etc., all have tremendously progressed today. But where is India? In spite of the fact, we enjoy all potentials, still we are far behind. At least, we can say, we did not progress up to the optimum level. Just look into the contribution of these countries into international GDP and what is our share? If India has to grow then every single citizen should start working without least bothering about political trends.

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