A Plea for a Conscience Vote!
P.A.Sangma is the “Opposition” candidate
An open and democratic contest is all the more good for a mature democracy/The new cohesion and also the new contradictions in the party ranks is all the more goof as a public education for the politicians who have become all the more cynical and devoid of any commitment for ethics or principles.
Party discipline is a deceptive political treachery! Yes, we saw the display of double talk and plain narrow and self-destructive politics of the major parties.
It is the design of selfish and narrow forces that could even disrupt India and lead to unintended consequences!
So many contradictions within the parties and also parties’ alliances!
So, only a Conscience vote could give Indian political scene a rational clarity!
India is in a serious political crisis
Call it crisis or confusion. India is in a serious situation at present. As we write there is a serious divide in the principal Opposition alliance, name, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). It is a very serious ideological crisis also, besides, the usual individual ego clashes. One of the principal allies, the JD (U), is almost in open revolt over the identification of who would be the next NDA choice for the Prime Minister’s post, rather than the current struggle within its allies over the next Presidential choice! This is rather curious and totally unexpected development at the moment.
The NDA split over the next Prime Ministerial candidate for the BJP is much more important, in a significant and even historic context for in the next General Elections due in 2014, it is expected the Congress might lose and the chances for the Opposition parties are brighter. In that scenario, who is the choice for the next Prime Minister for the BJP? Is it Narendra Modi who already goes about posing himself that choice is already in his lap, thanks to a combination of factors, also the BJP is faced with what to do with the patriach, L.K.Advani.
Now, Nitish Kumar, the Bihar Chief Minister of the JD(U)who is in coalition with the BJP, his deputy Chief Minister is another Mody who is from the BJP. Yet, the duo are clear that Narendra Modi must be stopped in his tracks right now, very much before choosing the next Presidential candidate and therefore Mr.Kumar has given out a strong message that a secular and liberal face must be projected as the next NDA choice. Mr.Nithish Kumar also fits the bill very well, given his track record in resurrecting Bihar, from a hopeless state to a promising state.
So, the on-going confusion over the choice of the next Presidential candidate is also bogged down with all choices eliminated and only P.A.Sangma left for the Opposition to choose.
And yet, Sangma is seen as a Congressman, he was a Congressman and even after he left the party to form the Nationalist Congress party(NCP)he is not on good terms with Sharad Pawar, the otherwise most powerful politician but very corrupt to the core ,in terms of wealth also in terms of his highly unreliable political commitments.
So, when Pawar threatens Sangma from the context, just to be seen to enable to make Pranab Mukerjee the sole contestant and also a unanimous choice is fraught with serious questions of principles and also morality and even some of the core values of the Indian republic and Indian democracy.
In fact, much more is at issue.
Where is India going now? Is there any clear direction, as far as our core values are concerned?
The very foundations of the Indian polity, its Parliamentary Democracy is at stake. See the number of the top players who are unelected and yet they wield so much political power. This is the classic case of power without accountability.
The Prime Minister is unelected. The Congress party President is unelected as President for such a long time of 14 years.
The very many core institutions, be it Cabinet formation, it is also decided by Sonia Gandhi, even the names of ministers for key and why all ministries are named by her and also the very many names, like foreign envoys and why even the Rajya Sabha nominations, why, even the Governors of states are nominated, some of these nominations if examined in detail would evoke laughter if not utter disgust and even anger.
The Congress party has no elected Congress Working Committee(CWC),no elected AICC and no elected PCCS.
Not for by other reasons the party is now drubbed with successive defeats, it is for very sound reasons of defying and disregarding the very traditions of the Party, the party is no in total disintegration in the states.
Also, as a consequence of this disintegration we see the rise of regional state-level Congress-inspired outfits. The NCP to Trinamol to Jagan Mohan Congress in AP and also in other states, even in Karnataka, there was a revolt just now over the Legislative Council elections, where the Leader of the Opposition(The Congress party only!) resigned in a huff over him being totally ignored by Sonia Gandhi.
Sonia Gandhi is now surrounded by people, from Cabinet Ministers to party workers by all who ,may be started with some idealism and enthusiasm but now totally ceptical and now completely cynical.
You can’t meet an average Congressman or woman except those who are fed up with the party’s ways of going about its duties.
So, given the very context of the current situation how the Presidential elections would be gone through.
The party spokespersons talk of numbers being on their side. May be. Very well, Mr.Pranab Mukerjee would be elected with overwhelming majority of votes.
Fine! But does that serve any useful purpose.
Will the election of Mukerjee a sign of health or lack of health in the system?
I feel that given the present mood in the country, why within the Congress party and even within the NDA, there is total confusion, there is a serious lack of any realism in the minds of the people, the patriotism, the identification with India as one country, one people, our Constitution’s laudable objectives, Secularism, Unity and also integration of the various regions, the castes and the religions and the minorities, it is only proper, in my serious view, that the context of the Presidential election must be through a conscience vote!
Such an appeal by P.A.Sangma, the Opposition candidate, must evoke an enthusiastic welcome from the people, also from all parties.
Even now, there are dissenting voices of a different kind. Trinamool refuses to participate in the Presidential elections, it might abstain, so too another small party, the Opposition party of actor Vijayakant in Tamil Nadu also announced his party would abstain. Who knows how many other parties, from Jagan’s Congress to even Congress units in the states, why even in the NDA parterre’s parties there might be a great deal of cross voting!
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