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POLITICAL IRONY
Selling dreams Modi, Rahul waysMalladi Rama Rao A 15- minute debate is what Congress President Rahul Gandhi wants to have with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Why 15- minutes? Why not 25 minutes or 30 minutes?
A15- minute debate is what
Congress President Rahul
Gandhi wants to have with
Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Why 15-minutes? Why not 25
minutes or 30 minutes? He has
not explained why he has hit upon the 15-
minute slot. It is his calling. But why is he
daring the Prime Minister of the day for a
debate? People are fed up with promises and speeches and doles and dreams. They want action. Not fights. Not fake angry bouts. Delivery is what the aspirational Indian wants today. Indira Gandhi had even toyed with the idea of a formal switch to presidential form of government. Why she had left the exercise undone is a different issue altogether. Her grandson is determined to accomplish that mission, if we go by his tweet- aday asking answers from the Prime Minister for everything that is wrong with today's India. "Why are you not speaking up Prime Minister" - is the taunt that goes out from Rahul's twitter handle the moment his backroom boys and girls are woken up by the Breaking News on the LCD TV screen. A rape in Kathua or Unnao, an atrocity on Dalits, a farmer's suicide, water shortage in a Delhi mohalla, a tragedy in faraway Assam – the list is long; for them no issue is untouchable. Even a Modi advisory to the pracharak- lawmakers on "no masala" to the mediabecomes an open attempt to gag the BJP netas! What matters to Rahulites is the potential to hit at the man reeling with self-inflicted wounds. Will the issue get resolved if PMModi speaks up, issues a statement condemning the atrocity? This thought does not appear to cross their mind. The scion of the Nehru-Indira dynasty wants an answer –nothing short of an instant nirvana for the country from the ills plaguing it under the Modi dispensation.The 48-year-old young man is the selfanointed Angry Young Man of Indian politics today. Rahul Gandhi is not alone in demanding accountability of the Prime Minister. He has good company in Arvind Kejriwal, the muffler-man, who goes around as the anarchist on the prowl. There is one big difference between them. AK has slowed down post- Punjab and Delhi poll reverses; RG has smelt blood after Gujarat and Gorakhpur. Mayawati, Mamata and Yechury are giving them company. There is something else common to them. All are regional satraps – well Rahul and Yechury too though they operate from sprawling Bhavans in the nation's capital. CPI-M has not grown beyond its three backyards – Bengal, Tripura and Kerala. Elsewhere in the country, it depends on the local winning horses for making a mark. The Congress is in no different position today; its footprint is limited to Punjab, Puducherry, Mizoram,and, of course, Karnataka where it may be forced to knock at the doors of the Humble Farmer, Deve Gowda, for survival with a photo-finish forecast in the May election.
Modi's BJP is no national party either. The Hindu
Hrudaya Samrat has helped the party to extend its
sway to a large swath of the country. So what? There
is no change in its core complexion. Like in all
regional parties, in the BJP, too, leaders take the cue
to speak up only when the boss speaks up. His Man
Ki Bath should have set the national agenda for
good governance. It has not. Reason? The absence
of good governance at the ground level. Also the
lack of transparencyand punctured invincibility
myth. The free run the saffron shirts have been
enjoying to the dismay of blue shirts and red and
white caps has devalued the much talked about
Moditva. |