07-08-2006, 06:02 AM
Look at the pathetic Sekhar Gupta. These bast@ards made this government by spreading gloom and doom when NDA provided the boom. Noe the bast@ards saw how this garabge sh!tty alliance called UPA is destroying the nation. They can't admit they are wrong. This pathetic MORON is trying to send message after message to SONIA warning her that if this bumbling continue, people realize what they have done and bring back BJP.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.indianexpress.com/story/8090.html
<b>Handicap at 7, Race Course</b>
Shekhar Gupta
Posted online: Saturday, July 08, 2006 at 0000 hrs Print Email
No good news please, we are the Congress Centre-right? Thatâs all right Who needs checks & balances? Up & down in down southNow, donât lose the plot
The central fact of our politics is that since 1971 no prime minister has got re-elected. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in 1999, was the only exception, but his first term had lasted less than a year and he rode to an even greater majority on a wave of public disapproval over the way his first NDA government had been brought down. True, the Congress got re-elected under Rajiv Gandhi in 1984, but it was widely believed that if Indira Gandhi had led the party in that election, the results would have been very different. Also, while an incumbent prime minister is therefore sure to lose power, there is also by now a confirmed phenomenon â whereby he makes, or is hustled into making, a whole series of mistakes that rob him of his authority and prestige, reducing him to lame-duck status. A lame-duck, downhill incumbent versus a resurgent challenger also makes for an easier choice for the voter, whose natural inclination is towards change anyway.
There are no exceptions to this rule. In 1977 Indira Gandhi lost power â even her own election to a maverick like Raj Narain â because her own prime ministerial authority and respect had been destroyed by the excesses of the Emergency. In 1980 she came back in style because she was challenging, in Charan Singh, a totally inconsequential prime minister whose predecessor, Morarji Desai too had had a short, colourless tenure (history remembers him more for his fads like auto-urine therapy than any statesmanship). The verdict of the summer of 1980, therefore, was a punitive verdict against the Janata Party for giving us not one but two inconsequential prime ministers.
While 1984 became an exception because of the incumbent prime ministerâs assassination, the most unfortunate case is of Rajiv Gandhi in 1989. He started with the most brute majority an Indian prime minister had ever secured, and probably ever will, with 413 seats. His favourite joke, then, was that his HRD ministryâs 10+2+3 formula had first been applied to his Opposition, the Jana Sangh, Janata and Socialists, because that pretty much represented the number of seats they had secured. In his first two years, he could have done anything. So much was the popular affection and euphoria, he could have â if he wished to â changed our national anthem, and won applause for it. But by the middle of 1987, things had begun to go wrong. From then until the elections in 1989 it was all downhill. His majority of 413 was reduced to 197. A man who was applauded for every idea, every exhortation, every promise, had now become an object of derision.
How Rajiv, and his government went downhill in 1987-89 is a lesson for our political classes for all time to come, but most of all for Congressmen today who, in this peculiar Parliament, are both incumbents as well as aspirants. How did they decline from a point where it looked like they were destined to rule for ever; decline so dramatically they lost power to a dissident like V.P. Singh, who could not even be defined as a national leader?
The Bofors and HDW submarine scandals played their role. But what diminished the moral and political authority of Rajiv was a series of blunders in which he was pushed by circumstance, cynical advisors and his own inexperience. From blundering in the Shah Bano case, that angered both secular Muslims and Hindus and strengthened the BJP charge of minority appeasement, to the shilanyas at Ayodhya â were a series of disastrous mistakes. The anti-defamation bill angered all in the media when memories of the Emergency were still fresh. The partyâs hasty intervention in Sri Lanka was seen as a politically motivated exercise; Brasstacks, another evidence of his âinexperienceâ and lack of control. His by now infamous threat of naani yaad dila denge in a Boat Club rally directed at mythical foreign powers out to de-stabilise him, caused more laughter than fear. And then there was that most unfortunate but forever lingering slip of the tongue, hum haarenge yaa loosenge.
Maybe it was Bofors and the âbetrayalâ of his closest friends that made him take his eye off the ball. But the net result was that the Rajiv Gandhi that sought re-election in 1989 was already looking like a prime minister who had lost authority.
The other subsequent prime ministers and their performances at elections are a mere footnote in comparison. But the trend was exactly the same. V.P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar went to the polls in 1991, both looking like caricatures of prime-ministerial authority and received a thrashing from which they never recovered. Narasimha Rao was a different case. He was never elected, only destined to be prime minister. But by the time he sought re-election in 1996, his prime-ministerial authority was also in tatters, partly because of dissidents and partly because of his brutal attempts to fix them, in alliance with Chandraswamy. Subsequent prime ministers, Gowda and Gujaral, may not deserve too much space as individuals. But it was a continuing process of the devaluation of the prime ministerâs stature that brought the NDA under Vajpayee into power. Vajpayee â the only incumbent prime minister to get re-elected in 35 years so far â could ensure this because not only was his authority intact in 1999, it had been enhanced by Kargil.
This is what Congressmen whose favourite whine these days is that âManmohan Singh is such a non-political prime minister!â need to remember. Their calculation in May 2004 was sound and reasonable. That Singh will run a decent government till 2009 and then, since he obviously will not be seeking re-election, they will manage to buck the anti-incumbency and seek a more complete mandate for Rahul, or even Sonia. They need to ask themselves if they can do so with a prime minister who is reduced to a lame-duck when his second anniversary celebrations have barely concluded. Can he even drag on like this for two more years? And if he canât or wonât, do they have a Plan B? Can they now appoint another, âpoliticalâ prime minister and hope that he will help them get a better mandate in 2009, or even preserve power for them till then?
The consequences of undermining their own prime ministerâs authority will be one more disaster for not just the Congress, but the entire âsecularâ alliance, even if the Left will see in that the hope of a third front government, should the 15th Lok Sabha unlike this one provide that opportunity. At least they are being upfront about the fact that they see the UPA as an interim arrangement, and that they are working towards a third front which can only come to power if the Congress cedes even more ground to regional, caste-based parties and the BJP, and falls below 125.
With the continuing weakening of Manmohan Singh, they have got at least one thing going their way. Rollbacks under alliesâ pressures apart, not one of his recent economic or foreign policy decisions has found moral support from his party. Too many members of his cabinet, most notably from his own party, give the impression that they are their own masters. Some, notably Shibu Soren and Chandrashekhar Rao, do not even bother to attend most cabinet meetings. Others defy his decisions and, behind his back, repeat the same whine of âsuch a non-political prime ministerâ.
The only man this government has dared to fire in two years for inefficiency, non-performance or insubordination is Dr Venugopal of AIIMS! Can it get more ridiculous than this? You can bet the voters are watching in disgust and the detractors of the Congress â the BJP, Mulayam and certainly the Left â in delight. They are also waiting for the next election, which will at this rate be much closer than 2009.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.indianexpress.com/story/8090.html
<b>Handicap at 7, Race Course</b>
Shekhar Gupta
Posted online: Saturday, July 08, 2006 at 0000 hrs Print Email
No good news please, we are the Congress Centre-right? Thatâs all right Who needs checks & balances? Up & down in down southNow, donât lose the plot
The central fact of our politics is that since 1971 no prime minister has got re-elected. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in 1999, was the only exception, but his first term had lasted less than a year and he rode to an even greater majority on a wave of public disapproval over the way his first NDA government had been brought down. True, the Congress got re-elected under Rajiv Gandhi in 1984, but it was widely believed that if Indira Gandhi had led the party in that election, the results would have been very different. Also, while an incumbent prime minister is therefore sure to lose power, there is also by now a confirmed phenomenon â whereby he makes, or is hustled into making, a whole series of mistakes that rob him of his authority and prestige, reducing him to lame-duck status. A lame-duck, downhill incumbent versus a resurgent challenger also makes for an easier choice for the voter, whose natural inclination is towards change anyway.
There are no exceptions to this rule. In 1977 Indira Gandhi lost power â even her own election to a maverick like Raj Narain â because her own prime ministerial authority and respect had been destroyed by the excesses of the Emergency. In 1980 she came back in style because she was challenging, in Charan Singh, a totally inconsequential prime minister whose predecessor, Morarji Desai too had had a short, colourless tenure (history remembers him more for his fads like auto-urine therapy than any statesmanship). The verdict of the summer of 1980, therefore, was a punitive verdict against the Janata Party for giving us not one but two inconsequential prime ministers.
While 1984 became an exception because of the incumbent prime ministerâs assassination, the most unfortunate case is of Rajiv Gandhi in 1989. He started with the most brute majority an Indian prime minister had ever secured, and probably ever will, with 413 seats. His favourite joke, then, was that his HRD ministryâs 10+2+3 formula had first been applied to his Opposition, the Jana Sangh, Janata and Socialists, because that pretty much represented the number of seats they had secured. In his first two years, he could have done anything. So much was the popular affection and euphoria, he could have â if he wished to â changed our national anthem, and won applause for it. But by the middle of 1987, things had begun to go wrong. From then until the elections in 1989 it was all downhill. His majority of 413 was reduced to 197. A man who was applauded for every idea, every exhortation, every promise, had now become an object of derision.
How Rajiv, and his government went downhill in 1987-89 is a lesson for our political classes for all time to come, but most of all for Congressmen today who, in this peculiar Parliament, are both incumbents as well as aspirants. How did they decline from a point where it looked like they were destined to rule for ever; decline so dramatically they lost power to a dissident like V.P. Singh, who could not even be defined as a national leader?
The Bofors and HDW submarine scandals played their role. But what diminished the moral and political authority of Rajiv was a series of blunders in which he was pushed by circumstance, cynical advisors and his own inexperience. From blundering in the Shah Bano case, that angered both secular Muslims and Hindus and strengthened the BJP charge of minority appeasement, to the shilanyas at Ayodhya â were a series of disastrous mistakes. The anti-defamation bill angered all in the media when memories of the Emergency were still fresh. The partyâs hasty intervention in Sri Lanka was seen as a politically motivated exercise; Brasstacks, another evidence of his âinexperienceâ and lack of control. His by now infamous threat of naani yaad dila denge in a Boat Club rally directed at mythical foreign powers out to de-stabilise him, caused more laughter than fear. And then there was that most unfortunate but forever lingering slip of the tongue, hum haarenge yaa loosenge.
Maybe it was Bofors and the âbetrayalâ of his closest friends that made him take his eye off the ball. But the net result was that the Rajiv Gandhi that sought re-election in 1989 was already looking like a prime minister who had lost authority.
The other subsequent prime ministers and their performances at elections are a mere footnote in comparison. But the trend was exactly the same. V.P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar went to the polls in 1991, both looking like caricatures of prime-ministerial authority and received a thrashing from which they never recovered. Narasimha Rao was a different case. He was never elected, only destined to be prime minister. But by the time he sought re-election in 1996, his prime-ministerial authority was also in tatters, partly because of dissidents and partly because of his brutal attempts to fix them, in alliance with Chandraswamy. Subsequent prime ministers, Gowda and Gujaral, may not deserve too much space as individuals. But it was a continuing process of the devaluation of the prime ministerâs stature that brought the NDA under Vajpayee into power. Vajpayee â the only incumbent prime minister to get re-elected in 35 years so far â could ensure this because not only was his authority intact in 1999, it had been enhanced by Kargil.
This is what Congressmen whose favourite whine these days is that âManmohan Singh is such a non-political prime minister!â need to remember. Their calculation in May 2004 was sound and reasonable. That Singh will run a decent government till 2009 and then, since he obviously will not be seeking re-election, they will manage to buck the anti-incumbency and seek a more complete mandate for Rahul, or even Sonia. They need to ask themselves if they can do so with a prime minister who is reduced to a lame-duck when his second anniversary celebrations have barely concluded. Can he even drag on like this for two more years? And if he canât or wonât, do they have a Plan B? Can they now appoint another, âpoliticalâ prime minister and hope that he will help them get a better mandate in 2009, or even preserve power for them till then?
The consequences of undermining their own prime ministerâs authority will be one more disaster for not just the Congress, but the entire âsecularâ alliance, even if the Left will see in that the hope of a third front government, should the 15th Lok Sabha unlike this one provide that opportunity. At least they are being upfront about the fact that they see the UPA as an interim arrangement, and that they are working towards a third front which can only come to power if the Congress cedes even more ground to regional, caste-based parties and the BJP, and falls below 125.
With the continuing weakening of Manmohan Singh, they have got at least one thing going their way. Rollbacks under alliesâ pressures apart, not one of his recent economic or foreign policy decisions has found moral support from his party. Too many members of his cabinet, most notably from his own party, give the impression that they are their own masters. Some, notably Shibu Soren and Chandrashekhar Rao, do not even bother to attend most cabinet meetings. Others defy his decisions and, behind his back, repeat the same whine of âsuch a non-political prime ministerâ.
The only man this government has dared to fire in two years for inefficiency, non-performance or insubordination is Dr Venugopal of AIIMS! Can it get more ridiculous than this? You can bet the voters are watching in disgust and the detractors of the Congress â the BJP, Mulayam and certainly the Left â in delight. They are also waiting for the next election, which will at this rate be much closer than 2009.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->