A mid-term crisis or a mid-term poll syndrome?
Ministers don’t perform and more scandals strike!
It looked when the UPA-II was formed it was a sort of some improvement over the previous UPA_I. For one thing, some really corrupt ministers from the allies were kept out of the ministry and the DMK, even then created troubles, was kept under check.
But then the Prime Minister seemed to have given in to blackmail and so too the Congress President Sonia Gandhi. Now, the Nira Radia tapes, as they are now known, have revealed the more diabolical acts of the minister for telecom and the result is the mess in which we find ourselves today.
Also, what is distressingly clear today is that we are forced to ask some hard questions, not to embarrass anybody but to make ourselves clear about the issues.
It is now transparent that the PMO is not functioning at all, as we have all hoped for.
Dr. Subramanyam Swamy, in his individual capacity as a concerned citizen writes letters to the Prime Minister, in this instance, requesting permission from the PMO to prosecute a Cabinet Minister who was perceived to have committe4d some serious acts of corruption. The PM, as it is his wont, as now revealed by the proceedings of the Supreme Court, sat on Dr.Swamy’s letter. Not out of any consideration of any serious nature, technical or moral but by the sheer habit of running a government without touch with the ordinary citizens.
As we can all see now the PM doesn’t hold a daily durbar in his lawns as it used to be in all other PMs’s days, he doesn’t receive petitions in person or through his office; the PM has not system of keeping in touch with the public.
So, in this instance too the PM simply ignored the letter from Dr.Swamy.
And what letter? It was letter with a terrible potential for a Watergate type crisis and that is now what is unfolding before the nation. When Dr.Swamy sought permission to prosecute A.Raja, the PM ignored the letter. The PM was under pressure? Yes, it seems very likely, he was held back and, as we can imagine easily that a normal person would have been intimidated by the tricks and troubles and tactics delayed by the very ruthless and very selfish and even self-destructive force like that of the DMK. It is a fascist force, as can be seen by the way it went about it since it was forced to quit the portfolio in question.
Now, a whole new volcano has erupted, this time, in the form of the Radia telephone tapes! As the Home Secretary has told the Wall Street Journal, the current revelations is only a tip of the iceberg, the 5,000 and odd tapes might have immense potential for greater damage, considering the tax evasions might not be so earth-shattering, though they may be so very likely, but the other details, very many embarrassing personal conversations with ,again very likely with everyone who matters in Indian politics and as Dr.Swamy ominously and perniciously warned that unless the PM, who is in legal jargon is a respondent No.1 before the Supreme Court and who is defended by clever lawyers and their arguments so far gives us not much comfort or for the Prime Minister any moral way out but to get tied to fine legal arguments is not, in our considered view, the best way for a Prime Minister to go about to establish his credentials in the public arena.
Attorney General Vahanvati took a very highly clever (but unconvincing from a moral point of view) stand that the selection of the Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) need not be based on the criteria of impeccable integrity but on other grounds as well. Then the AG threw the gauntlet at the Bench saying that if the criteria of impeccable integrity are to be chosen as the ground, there can’t be any judge who can stand the test of integrity. Integrity is such a subjective ground that the test of integrity can’t be counted in the selection process and, by implication, the AG seems to be telling the public that there are considerations other than integrity in the election of the particular CVC.
Now, it is plain common sense and that what matters when it comes to the public to judge whether the Prime Minister was acting with some maturity of judgment when he chose Mr.Thomas as the CVC by simply ignoring the leader of the Opposition when there were only just the leader of Opposition, himself and the home minister.
Again, if we look at the very likely scenario, the PM must have been given a brief note by his secretaries, all Malayalees like Mr.Thomas and the PM, without applying his mind might have indicated his preference for the incumbent candidate and the home minister might have noded his consent while the two might have coolly ignored the BJP point of view.
The PM has such a track record in the past too. Dr.Singh once recommended Shashi Tharoor for the post of the Secretary General of the United Nations, remember? How this happened, you know?
It was alleged the very same Malayali lobby then around the PM did the mischief.
Dr.Singh should have known that Tharoor was a greenhorn for such a high level post and the very same mistake proved when the very same Tharoor was inducted into the Ministry.
It was also said the very same person was also chosen for contesting the prestigious Congress seat in Thiruvanathapuram and It only proves that the PM is a poor leader with a very poor capacity to judge people and their competence. Now, we are constrained to say the same thing about the Congress President too.
See the candidates who adorn the high Constitutional offices. A very poor specimen of the abundant talent that is available in the country.
So, the allocation of portfolios, as Radia tapes reveal, with shocking details was done not as we all dearly hoped for by an objective and a highly serious thought process but, alas, by the dictates of the corporate lobbyists and even by the high profile media journalists!
So, is this all for Sonia Gandhi leadership, one wonders!
So, is this all to the so hard cultivate image of the PM as a wideman?
Poor India! The country is not well served by such very poor specimens of leadership!
So, now we are in the midst of a mid-term crisis and a very likely mid-term polls syndrome?
Yes, it looks like that.
There are so many scandals. A series of them. Then, there are rising portfolio conflicts. The environment minister vs. other ministries. The HRD portfolio is now non-functional and the incumbent minister is saddled with additional telecom portfolio.
The I&B ministry is non-functional.
Parliament is non-functional.
To the list of non-functional ministries we can some more!
Then there is the party in the midst of a crisis. After the Bihar washout, Rahul is nowhere. So what next?
May be the mid-term poll only could save the government.