(One unmistakable message from UP elections is that people don’t want caste and rhetoric. Nor do they feel comfortable with packages and promises. For them, food on the table, quality employment, better health and above all ability to live with dignity is what matters. So, it is time to go back to the common man’s plank for Manmohan Singh and Co.,)
New Delhi: The irony was difficult to miss. It was Tuesday, May 22 evening. It was close to 7pm. Leaders and media were gathering in strength under a specially erected and tastefully decorated shamina at 7 Race Course Road to hear UPA’s 3-year report. As Prime Minister was getting ready to receive the guests who included Sonia Gandhi, an aide walked briskly towards him and whispered something into his ears. Almost around the same time, news agency tickers were carrying a flash:-‘3 bomb blasts in Gorakhpur. 6 injured’. Quickly most TV channels switched over to the ‘Breaking News’. Only the good old Doordarshan (DD) News Channel picked up the UPA ‘live’ feed.
BJP President Rajnath Singh was quick to react. “The UPA has compromised national security. Terrorist attacks are increasing”, he thundered. “The list is unending... Ayodhya, Bangalore, Kashi, Delhi, Mumbai, Malegaon, Samjhouta Express, Jammu, Hyderabad and now it is Gorakhpur”.
Earlier in the day, Rajnath issued a 66-page charge sheet, “UPA's Three Years, Aam Aadmi’s Tear Years”. And offered a byte, “UPA’s is a faceless, directionless and spineless rule. It is led by a Prime Minister who has no say in his cabinet”.
It was his first press conference in the capital after he led the BJP to its historic rout in Uttar Pradesh. He entered the media conference room at the party headquarters, 11 Ashok Road, fully prepared to turn the guns on Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and the Congress in that order.
But he found himself facing a barrage of questions on ‘sword display’ in Punjab where his party is a junior partner in the Akali-led government. There was reason. The day witnessed life come to a standstill in the state by a bandh called by the Sikh clergy, which is locked in a stand-off with Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmit Ram Rahim.
Initially, Rajnath tried to duck for cover. And then tried to obfuscate. Finally, when he opened up, he did not want to sound as harsh as his Punjab colleagues. “I have spoken twice with Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal on phone and told him that every measure should be taken to contain violence and to maintain peace”.
Poor Rajnath. For yet another time, the BJP lost its thunder. Who hijacked it? The Left, of course. Ever since the UPA came to power on their crutches, the Left has occupied the opposition space. Whether it played that role effectively or allowed itself to be led by its fear of lengthening saffron shadows is a moot point. Opinion is divided any how.
That the Left is increasingly worried about the direction of the government is public knowledge. “The gap between ‘shining India’ and ‘suffering India’ is widening”, Sitaram Yechuri, Marxist ideologue and politburo member, said. Surprisingly, this view is shared by some in the Government as well.
Mani Shankar Aiyer, the maverick former diplomat and presently minister for Panchayati Raj, spoke his mind with “Devil’s Advocate’ Karan Thapar in an interview aired on TV-18 group of channels. “Alarm bells absolutely must be rung”. He said his views have a ‘resonance with every single minister I have talked about this’ matter”. Added he,” Nobody has reprimanded me. No body has suggested that I am out of line. No one. Literally, no one… I will certainly not be whistling in the wind”. He did not sound like a dissident. He talked more like a person who is worried about his next election.
The Mani speak was ammunition good enough for L K Advani to fire at Sonia Gandhi.
“I don’t know why Shri Aiyar is being allowed to say such things by the Congress high command without being reprimanded,” the former deputy prime minister, who is credited with rebuilding the BJP after it was reduced to just 2 seats in the Lok Sabha in 1984, said, while hitting the campaign trail in Goa.
In the Advani view, the blunt undiplomatic Mani speak is a calibrated effort to distance the ‘dynasty’ from the failures of UPA Government. He has a point but it needn’t necessarily be the only point.
Not surprisingly, course correction is the flavour of the season. “Go for a mid-course recast of policies”, D Raja, the CPI national secretary, who hopes to enter the Rajya Sabha from Tamilnadu in July, thundered. His boss, A B Bardhan, who admits with a smile that his one and only electoral foray forty years ago ended in defeat, has been giving the thumbs down to UPA for a while. He also has been pushing for a review of Left’s relationship with the government.
Bardhan, like any other Left leader, is angry that the Manmohan Singh government is not sensitive to Left concerns. “I believe Dr Manmohan Singh is blessing Chidambaram and Montek (Singh Ahluwalia, the deputy chairman of Planning Commission). That is why they are going ahead with their plans”, CPI General Secretary declares.
Yet, the Big Marxist brother is unmoved by his case for a redefinition of Left-UPA relations on the basis of Government policies. The point is none of the four Left parties is prepared to rock the UPA boat. Certainly, not after reading 3rd anniversary eve surveys, which said, “UPA ratings take a dip but NDA eases ahead”.
Probably, there is no need for a ‘Left push’ for UPA. That much has become clear in the past few days. The tone for revisiting the drawing board has been set up by Manmohan Singh himself long before the nation was mesmerised by ‘Maya Jal’. He has been voicing his disquiet at every available platform on a host of issues that range from crony capitalism to social safety net and from upper caste poor’s plight to low farm yields.
At a full meeting of the Planning Commission in early May, for instance, he called for ‘back to basics’ in agriculture. Shorn of economic jargons, it means working on state and area specific agriculture plans not from Yojana Bhavan but at the district and state level. Rural distress is as much a big political headache as spiralling prices. Actionable plans and quick results are a must in this country which witnesses some election somewhere almost every quarter.
One unmistakable message from UP elections, according to social scientists, is people don’t want caste and rhetoric. Nor do they feel comfortable with packages and promises. For them, food on the table, quality employment, better health and above all ability to live with dignity is what matters.
The need is for something like the rural job guarantee scheme, which everyone thought three years back, was ambitious and unworkable in our country. Andhra Pradesh proved that the optimism of the authors of the scheme was not misplaced. Implemented in over 9000 habitations, it has become a model of effectiveness and probity what with payment of wages directly made into the postal savings bank accounts of every job card holder.
So, it is time to go back to the common man for Manmohan Singh and Co., “We recognise that high national income growth alone does not address the challenges of employment promotion, poverty reduction and balanced regional development. Nor does growth in itself improve human development”, the Prime Minister told his UPA constituents before inviting them to a sumptuous third anniversary dinner. And assured them his government will work with ‘dedication and renewed energy to build a new India, a caring India, an inclusive India, and an India of our dreams’.
Back to basics once again as the voters come back into reckoning!
“Left is increasingly worried about the direction of the government and it sees the gap between ‘shining India’ and ‘suffering India’ widening. Mid-course recast of policies is its recipe.
The Marxist Big brother is not prepared to rock the UPA boat and hence the cold shoulder to Bardhan’s push for a review of Left’s relationship with the government”.
Probably, there is no need for a ‘Left push’ for UPA. The tone for revisiting the drawing board has been set up by Manmohan Singh himself long before the nation was mesmerised by ‘Maya Jal’.
Rural distress is as much a big political headache as spiralling prices. Actionable plans and quick results are a must in this country which witnesses some election somewhere almost every quarter.
MAYA HAS AN AMAR
Satish Chandra Mishra is to Mayawati what Amar Singh is to Mulayam Singh, probably much more. And there is reason for this. Amar Singh delivered more bytes and less votes. Satish offered no bytes but delivered votes of ‘suvarna’ castes by helping ‘Behenji’ bring Brahmins, Thakurs, Rajputs and Banias under the BSP umbrella.
Like most Brahmins, Mishra belonged to the RSS-fold. When opportunity knocked at his door, he migrated to Mayawati camp with the ‘blessings’ of his BJP mentor, initially as a legal aid. He helped her fight a host of cases slapped by ‘Moolyam’ Singh, the SP supremo, who broke her party and ‘occupied’ her ‘Gaddi’ in Lucknow Sachivalaya for close to three years.
Mishra’s services were amply rewarded with a Rajya Sabha berth. But it was during the run up to the assembly elections 2007 that Mishra became the top strategist and emerged as the Brahmin face of the Dalit party. Now, Mayawati has found a cabinet berth for him as her number two in the government. Both should get elected to the legislative assembly or legislative council over the next six months. No problem.
Some analysts aver that Maya’s Dalit-Brahmin alliance decimated the BJP and relegated it to the slot of a distant third. ‘BJP is facing a terminal decline in UP’, says Yogendra Yadav, who, like several other pollsters, has egg on his face after the UP verdict. The issues dear to the Parivar, like Ram Mandir, are not relevant to the people in the state, according to him.
But, says, an in-house specialist at BJP headquarters, “We lost in UP because UP is a SP-BSP battle field. It is not like Uttarakhand or Rajasthan where it is BJP vs. Congress”.
- YAMAARAAR
GOOD BAD UGLY
Pranab Mukherjee tops the UPA pack as a getter done and trouble shooter, according to various surveys on government performance. Chidambaram is close behind but the Left is baying for his blood. His growth rates don’t translate into votes, Left fumes and the savvy lawyer admits they have a point.
Lalu Yadav, the Railway Minister and Kamalnath, the Commerce Minister are also rated high. Not Home Minister Shivraj Patil and HRD Minister Arjun Singh. At the bottom rung are Sharad Pawar, the Maratha who loves Cricket more than his agriculture and Ambumani Ramadoss, whose stay at the helm of health ministry, critics say, is like a bull in a china shop.
The economist-doctor, Manmohan Singh, scores 6 on a scale of 10.
Rural job guarantee scheme, Bharat Nirman, sustained growth rate, communal harmony and stable coalition are his plus. Price rise, SEZ mess, power crisis, farmers’ suicide, cheap exports and costly imports are his flip side.
All this hurts his image. Not of Sonia Gandhi. Even as the Left says UPA is no more aam aadmi’s government’.
Why? She has left ‘governance’ to the ‘doctor saheb’. And when she wants to say something, she shoots of a letter to him.
- YAMAARAAR
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