UPA merely a Post-Poll Opportunist Arrangement
by Nalin Kohli
India, the world’s largest democracy, is currently in the midst of elections. In [just a week] from now, on May 16, the final outcome and verdict of the people will be known. The BJP, as the principal Opposition party, has been spearheading the national debate and exposure on the list of failures of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance. And so dismal has been the track record of the UPA government under the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, that today erstwhile allies like Mr Lalu Prasad, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav and even Mr Sharad Pawar, are all keeping their post-poll options open and shying away from accepting Dr Manmohan Singh as their prime ministerial candidate. The so-called ‘United’ Progressive Alliance has today clearly become a (Dis)United Progressive Alliance. So where has this government gone wrong?
Let me broadly enumerate some of the principal failures of the UPA government. Firstly, the unprecedented rise in the prices of all essential commodities of daily use has severely burdened the common man as never before. Wheat, rice, sugar, milk, edible oil, vegetables, dals, the prices of every commodity of daily use has increased between 50% and 100% over the past five years. And then to top it, cooking gas is no longer available on demand. Ask any middle-class person, and they will not hesitate in saying that their food or kitchen bill has dramatically increased between 2004 and 2009. So why the so-called ‘dream team’ of economists and financial experts like Dr Manmohan Singh, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Mr Chidambaram could not manage to control prices? Their only defence is the low inflation rate based on the Wholesale Price Index or WPI. But what they cleverly don’t speak about is the more relevant Consumer Price Index or CPI which is what really matters in this case.
The second critical issue is that of rising unemployment. Even government statistics are forced to admit that jobs are being lost. According to some industry sources, over one crore or ten million jobs have already been lost in the last few months alone. Then key infrastructure projects started by the BJP-led NDA government under Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee like the National Highways Development Project and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana have slowed down. While roads increased at a pace of 11 km per day under the NDA, in five years this pace of progress has slowed down by at least 50 per cent.
It is indeed unfortunate that an economy of surpluses in 2004 under the BJP-led NDA has today been reduced to one of shortages under the Congress-led UPA. While the UPA government was quick to take credit when the going was good for the economy, they have been even faster in pushing the blame on the global meltdown to deflect criticism from their own lacklustre performance.
And finally on the security front, with the Taliban literally at our doorstep, this government has politicised the fight against terror and has been seen as unwilling to take the required measures to strengthen our security apparatus and send a strong message to the perpetrators of terror especially from across the border. The first step and so-called achievement of the UPA government was to disband POTA, a strong anti-terror law. Then after nearly five years of repeated terrorist strikes all over the country and including serial bomb blasts in Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Bangalore, Varanasi, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Guwahati and again 26/11 in Mumbai, the government finally passed an anti-terror law at the end of its tenure. And while the Congress-ruled states like Maharasthra and Delhi were allowed to have their own strong anti-terror laws like MCOCA, the UPA government prevented the BJP-ruled states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan to have similar laws like MCOCA. Why this disparity? Is the security of every Indian irrespective of where they live not of paramount importance?
Elections are fought on the performance of the incumbent government. And the BJP as a political party and Mr L K Advani as the prime ministerial candidate have obviously been keen to focus the national debate on such relevant issues. But the Congress party, for obvious reasons, would like to deflect the debate in other directions and not discuss price rise, security, unemployment etc or even seek to brush under the carpet all the help rendered by the UPA government between 2004 and 2009 to the Bofors-tainted Ottavio Quattrocchi or confusing it in legal phraseology.
I have no hesitation in saying that today it can be conclusively stated that the UPA was merely a post-poll arrangement of opportunism. And irrespective of diversionary tactics, the UPA in general and the Congress party in particular, will not be able to escape answering the people. And that’s what elections are all about -making political persons and parties responsible to the voters for their performance. As far as the BJP is concerned, we firmly believe and respect the fact that Indian democracy has matured to a level that people will cast their votes with a clear intention to reject the poor performance of the last five years.
(This article was first published on IBNLive on May 4, 2009.)
(Nalin Kohli is the BJP’s national media convener. He was a prime-time English news anchor on Doordarshan and an independent producer and director of television programmes. A history graduate with a post-graduate diploma in management and law degree, Kohli is a fellow of many prestigious fellowships including the Eisenhower Fellowship, East West Centre, Salzburg Seminar and Malaysia International Visitor Programme.)
Comments
11 Responses to “UPA merely a Post-Poll Opportunist Arrangement”
nalin
you probably are aware of this report in headlines today channel
Please see to that BJP focusses on this in the next phase.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=40958§ionid=4&issueid=104&Itemid=1
India not keen on black money: Swiss govt
The Swiss Justice Department on Friday said that the Government of India was dragging its feet on the black money issue.
In a Headlines Today exclusive, the department also said the Indian government had submitted forged documents to Swiss authorities in the $ 8-billion Hassan Ali money laundering case in January 2007. Stud farm owner Hassan Ali had illegally transferred $ 6 billion to UBS accounts and came under the Enforcement Directorate’s radar.
Swiss government spokesman Folco Galli told Headlines Today that the Indian government was informed about the fake documents by Swiss authorities in January 2007 itself. Further, the Swiss claimed to have submitted certain queries to the Indian government in April 2007 but New Delhi has not bothered to file a reply even 24 months later.
Since the black money issue became a major election plank for the Lok Sabha polls, the Centre claimed in the Supreme Court that it has been doing what it can to bring back the black money stashed in Swiss banks. The Centre’s affidavit in the SC however fails to mention that the Swiss have questioned the authenticity of the documents.
In fact, the Swiss spokesman’s answer seems to suggest there has been little or no action from the government’s side for the last two years in seriously pursuing the probe against Hassan Ali Khan.
The last sentence in the response of the Swiss is telling. Galli says, “India makes only few requests per year to Switzerland for legal aid in tracking down black money.”
Given the black economy is considered much bigger than the Indian economy, the UPA government has a lot to answer for.
The Centre has been claiming that Swiss domestic laws don’t allow them to access their bank accounts.
May 8, 2009 5:52 PM
Jay Bharat
Nalin your precense in TV debates is really worth praisind, you are quite strategically able to present the correct view of BJP , and very tactfully able to shut your opponents false propaganda.
Congrats
Even Pranab Mukherjee admitted that UPA is a post poll alignment. In other words it is only a joint venture to grab power and once the term is over the venture partners go their own way. Perhaps for this reason Rahul Gandhi is calling all the potential winners like Karat, Nitish Kumar, Chandrababu, Jayalalitha etc so that another joint venture to grab power can be formed. This leaves Karunanidhi, Mamta, Lalu and Paswan in the lurch. Now these chaps will understand how steadfast is the friendship with the BJP, which will never desert its partners.
friends,
last 5 years of upa rule is just acadmemic,
someone completing the education for the sake of degree,and now asking for the job, with electorate,
manmoahn is a p.m. without resposibility,
just defending sonia and her family,
he couldnot do any work because cpm and allies were blocking all important reforms, compared to his freedom during pv narasimha rao, non gandhi,
non dynastic, non congress policies,
now rahul is asking for deals with communists,
nitish, may be jayalalitha,
even someone from congress or non congress becomes prime minister it is academic only,
blocking their friends and enemies, this is always the congress game from independence,
country not progressing ,with no clear policies on security,terrorism,defence, economic,community development, communal problems, foreign policies,
in the name of youth fooling the people,
dear congressmen, you can fool all the people for some time, some people for some time,
but not all the time, projecting some pretty facees of rahul and priyanka , and projecting some lawyers like singhvi and kapil sibal,
fools like veerappa moily,
and also muslims , taking them for granted,
muslims are intelligent, they can take decision
for the sake of our country, being cultured indians,
i feel bjp and thru advaniji, can bring about
the best for this country in the next 5 years,
after vajpayee last regime which saw a dramatic
infrastructure development,
i feel with india will be number 1 in science,
technology, ifrastructure,information tech,
reforms, economics, to guard the borders,to have the best foreign policies,
muslims progressing and participating in all economic development,
congress, lallu,paswan,pawar,communists,dont play the secularism mask, and appease the muslims and
casteists,its dangerous for this country,
allow bjp rule for next 5 years, and see the progress,
karats and yerchuries its not your father ’s property india, to block bjp and bring
the pointless 3rd front
bjp deserves one more chance,
manmohan gracefully step down, otherwish, you will
go down in history as a greatest puppet not as econmist who changed the face of india,
dear friends,
there is no wave for congress like in indira and rajiv deaths, sonia dont take indians for granted
its not a marriage for convencince, its a country’s future, which was totally a slave for british and moghuls,
post independence saw the best regimes of narasimha rao , vajpayee, devegowda,vp singh,
all non congress
india ’s worst period is communists supporting any govt,
there is clear wave for nda, the best of advani,
nithish,chandra babu, jayalalitha,telengana parties,ajith singhs
which will protect all indians, not separate them into muslims,tamils,christians,kashmiris
learn from pakistan ,how taliban can take over
Nalin your induction into BJP is a new lease of fresh air for the party, first of all i congratulate on that front. you fill the place of Mr. Mahajan in my view. all the best for your endeavor, as far as this post is concerned you have listed out the most significant points that any party should address after the election and only BJP has the strength to do so.
I AGREE WITH YOU MR.JK
Nalin you have a great future .Your presentation is praise worthy and you only can check either Sardeep Desai ( CNN-IBN ) or Prannoy Roy (NDTV )on their blatant and anti-BJP nuances , gestures and their evil plans
The BJP was not able to articulate the failures of the UPA Govt. properly. Advaniji’s asseration that Manmohanji was the weakest PM was/is right, however, why would anyone care two hoots about it? It is ok as a statement but has no meaning as a selling point to garner votes. BJP’s total failure in Delhi can be attributed to various sops Delhi Govt. offers to its citizens and absolute lack of alternative, why would anyone vote for Goelji who looks like a sad pug dog? BTW wasn’t it nice that they were no bomb blasts few months before the election? What a miracle worker Chimdambaramji is; now a pessimist might say that there might have been some kind of an arrangement between elements in India and ISI/Talibanis so as not to prevent Indian voters for voting for Congress, you get the drift…ight..Of course I aint a pessimist and beleive in goodness in people..hope there is no “pound of flesh” though..cheers
Vera
Hi Nalin,
I think BJP needs more people like you. You are articulate and always present a smiling face and the way you trash false accusations of Congress and Media, is well praised.
Keep it up.
Why BJP is silent on the plight of Tamils in Srilanka?According to Times of UK Srilankan army has massacred 30000 Tamil Civilians this year alone.This genocide of Tamils should not be ignored.Srilankan government should be held accountable and the displaced Tamils have to be rehabilitated immediately