Congress losing ground

The more I see the double standards and the weak governance that is being practiced by the present Congress led government at the Center the more dismayed I feel at the levels to which the leaders fall for political gains.

After its ally, the DMK issued threat to the Manmohan Singh led UPA of pulling out of the alliance to express its concern with the Tamil issue in Srilanka, the Indian PM interfered in Srilanka’s internal issue and asked his counterpart to adopt a more humane way while dealing with a terrorist organization.

In another words, Manmohan Singh asked Rajapakse to show a bit more compassion while fighting the LTTE.

Political compulsion has forced the Gandhi family to conveniently forget that it was LTTE which was responsible for the death of hundreds of Indian peace keeping force and it was LTTE which made sure that Rajiv Gandhi paid with his life for sending IPKF to Srilanka.

Today in Maharashtra, a group of so called political activist led by a Bombay Scottish studied hoodlum, embarked on their mission to yet again project themselves as protector of ‘Marathimanus’, as a result of which north-eastern unemployed youths were brutally assaulted for appearing in railway recruitment board exams that were held in different part of the state

The same home minister, Shivraj Patil, who was earlier on forefront threatening the BJP government in Orissa and Karnataka with imposition of president rule for their failure to stop violence against the minority Christians has now chose to keep silence on the activity of MNS.

No ‘direct’ or even a ‘veiled’ threat or instructions was issued by the home minister to the Maharashtra CM to stop the repeated mockery of law and order.

Congress spokespersons appear on talk shows and say that the state government always takes necessary action against the MNS goons and its just that their party does not believe in announcing everything before the media.

Fifteen days later, the same violence is repeated, and again the same standard reply is forwarded by the party.

Perhaps they have forgotten the age old aphorism - "Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done."

What MNS in doing is not politics, not even by the farthest stretch of imagination. It can be called vandalism, a show of mob-strength. As of now MNS is not a political entity, but with the encouragement that it is receiving from the obvious political quarters it will soon turn into one, as did Shiv Sena.

This is not the first such incident and yet none of the senior leaders of the Congress have come in fore and called for taking action against Raj Thackery who is right now successfully enjoying the fruits of might is right.

It’s Vilas Rao Deshmukh who heads the Congress government in Maharashtra, and still the 10 Janpath people have not done anything concrete to stop the repeated assaults on the poor weak people apart from the regular titbit formality of arresting petty MNS workers and releasing them later.

Perhaps one of the reasons for this can be attributed to the fact that the Congress is virtually defunct in Bihar and despite its best claims; it is still miles away from making a serious impact in the neighboring Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. This might well be the reason for its decision to go slow on MNS in Maharashtra as taking stricter actions may alienate its Marathi vote bank. But it should not forget that ignoring MNSs antics will harm both the country and the Congress itself in the long run. History has more than enough examples to prove this point

Whatever good work that was achieved by the RTI and the NREGA now stands negated by the politically motivated steps that Congress has been treading these days.

When a strong political will was the need of the hour the country witnessed show of weakness.

Be it the nuclear deal or be it the current Srilankan issue, Congress has always gone for an embarrassing political compromise rather than face the public mandate. And I guess that this fear is not dumb founded. More and more voters are now witnessing everything that happens around them due to the ever penetrating media. Now Media is not merely a news giver but has donned the role of an opinion maker.

General elections are inevitable; it will happen, and someone will lose, others will not. Forecasting has never been my forte, but then you don’t need to be an astrologer to see the obvious.