Monday, November 26, 2012

Indian Political Slug Fest Towards 2014




Bikash Choudhury


Aun Su Kyi recently said “politics is about people” such a simple yet a very powerful observation. The political turmoil at present actually does not represent the wishes of people accurately; neither by the Govt. of the day nor by opposition forces and not even by the new Political organization on the chess board. As each one of them represent a certain constituency and raise a vociferous pitch to drown each others articulation at the cost of people, all of them claim to represent. If we pick the of FDI in Retail, then you would find the Govt. claims to be in the side of Farmers and Consumers and the Opposition aggressively fights for the 40 million small retailers and the newly formed political formation “Aam Aadmi” (some body has carefully chosen the name with inputs from numerologist, 15-28) pitches for an anti corruption bandwagon; effectively each in itself a powerful constituency and eventually a vote bank and each of them instead of serving the people in general they tend to restrict themselves to only a small subset of people. If opposition is so concerned about the “small retailers” then it could have sat with the Govt. and persuaded or, demanded for a “National Small Retailers Development Board” in the model of “National Dairy Development Board” in the co-operative sector to prepare the small retailers of the country to face the onslaught of MNC competition in the domain by networking across the country and with better supply chain arrangements; which could have been a win win solution for people. And, the new political formation should have pitched for a change in the ‘electoral system and election/political funding’ which remain the most potent source of corruption instead of targeting only individuals and a few organizations. Ordinary people only concerned with Bizli, Sadak and Pani & Roti, Kapada and Makan; which has not been adequately provided in last 65 years and may or may not be fulfilled if all these forces do not get together to change the very model of Governance to be efficient and effective.

That was just a trailer. The main focus of this essay is increasing turmoil in our political system and inside the political parties in the run up to 2013-14 general elections. No doubt there is a great disillusionment in the air and also at the same time, there are incredible hopes and aspirations of ordinary people of a ‘change for the better’. Almost year ago this author projected that the next Central Govt. could be formed by conglomerates of 13 regional political parties; however, after just one summer the political situation is under going radical changes which will have a substantial bearing on the outcome of general election that is due in 2014, but can also take place in 2013 much depending upon how this winter session of parliament run? Either ways, the Regional Political Parties may be losing out without a common platform or an agenda as capturing power can never be a stable agenda ever. Further, BJP has seen a spate of serious corruption cases maligning its President and there are rumblings inside; though, those may subside a little once Gujarat elections were over and Narendra Bhai Modi being shifted to National Capital to steer the party, as expected. Further, Congress Party gearing itself for election with slew of reforms including FDI and pending Direct Cash Transfers to beneficiaries. And, now the anti corruption movement taking shape as a brand new party; keeping in view all of them, you could guess last word is yet to be said and there could be many more changes in the offing that could influence the result up side down. There could be a realignment of forces around the new political formation as clean and established leaders from BJP & Congress moving there to transform the rag-tag organization into a Political force to recon with across the country and there are very many good and incorruptible leaders in both the National Parties to make a last ditch efforts to transform the country of their dreams as age may not be in their side and may be they are not well looked after in their parent organization. The other thing is the Regional Satraps still could wake up to draw up a National Coalition to fight the next general election jointly. Though, UPA II govt. may have lost a sizable mandate; but, the Congress Party is not leaving any stone unturned to retain the Govt. for the third time in a row; which may prove to be a daunting task. However, the quality of Leadership of Congress Party is much better in comparison to the only Party with a difference, BJP. Whatever happens between now and then, both the journey and the end result after the election would be very interesting and with surprises that no human being could imagine now? This author also surrenders to the Political destiny of this great country.


Twitter: @ideasofhope Blog: www.ideasofhopebikash.blogspot.com  E-mail:streben.market@gmail.com
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