03-04-2005, 06:37 PM
ITALIAN EXPRESS is tryin to put their best spin to blame everyone but SONIA in the hope the ITALIAN MAFIA is not EXPOSED.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The coterie can destroy the party
SAEED NAQVI
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story....t_id=65751
One of the most unsettling elements for the UPA government in New Delhi is the Congress desire to revive in UP and Bihar. The UPA rests on a sort of tripod, the three legs of which are Congress, Left, Laloo and company. The Congress and the Left are engaged in a continuous combat in Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal. In Kerala, it is a ding-dong contest, a kind of see-saw bringing UDF or the Left on top. In West Bengal, the Congress is condemned to offer only token resistance.
There were always two parallel tendencies in the Congress â BJP positive and anti-BJP, tendencies inherited from an earlier, pre-BJP period when Purushottam Das Tandon defeated Jawaharlal Nehru at the first Congress session in Bhubaneshwar in 1950.
While the Nehru-Tandon contest reflected differences within the Congress on the nature of Indian nationalism, Indira Gandhiâs cautious stance after her second-coming in 1980 was conditioned by the fear of losing Hindu votes because excessive talk of a so-called Muslim vote-bank was creating a backlash. Rajiv Gandhiâs inauguration of his election campaign in â89 from Ayodhya promising Ram Raj was tactically based on a similar appraisal of electoral politics.
By the time P.V. Narasimha Rao appeared on the scene, mandalisation was a rampaging reality. P.V.âs main support came from MPs from the south. This caused him to contemplate the mandir-mandal mahayudh in the Hindi belt, not like a Nehru but more like Purshottam Das Tandon. Little wonder L.K. Advani described him as the âbest prime minister since Lal Bahadur Shastriâ. In any case, P.V saw Congress revival in the Hindi belt a threat to his prime ministerial longevity. Just in case a revived Congress threw up a leader capable of challenging him! This, in addition to the caste homogeneity he felt for the Mandir forces, who â he believed â stood against the debrahminising tsunami of Mandal.
Preventing the revival of the Congress in the Hindi belt was, ironically, a strategy devised by a Congress PM. The rise and consolidation of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati in UP and Laloo Prasad Yadav in Bihar was one consequence of this policy. The other was the emergence of the BJP-NDA at the Centre.
<b>The May Lok Sabha elections exposed the hollowness of the NDA. Sonia Gandhiâs renunciation placed her on an unassailable pedestal. Under challenging conditions she had humbled the BJP. </b>True, but one fact must never be forgotten. The Congress only has 145 seats in a House of 543. The BJP has 138. P.V. had brought the party down to its lowest tally ever â 140 seats. Sitaram Kesari, as party president, won for the party 141 seats. Admittedly under trying conditions, Sonia Gandhi pulled up the party to 145 seats. It is a stark reality â from â96 to May â04, the Congress has hovered between 140 to 145 seats. All the other seats are with the Left (60 seats) or Mulayam (36), Laloo (24), BSP (19) DMK (16) and so on.
The UPA tripod, intelligently conceived, rests on the above figures. P. Chidambaram, in a brilliant Budget, demonstrated total grasp of these ground realities, without capitulating in any way. Full marks to the UPA government on several other counts â
<b>
foreign affairs, energy security. But just when the nation should have been showering praise on the UPA Budget, look what the party has gone and done. It has embroiled itself in the most inelegant, third-rate political manoeuvres in Jharkhand and Bihar, and it was so avoidable from the start.
Who are the coterie freelancers who have served Sonia Gandhi so poorly? They should be shown the door. Otherwise, the impression will continue to gain ground that she herself is solely responsible for the mess. In their eagerness to hand Sonia Gandhi the trophy of a revived Congress in Bihar, the coterie have gone and scored own-goals in Bihar and Jharkhand.
</b>
Sonia Gandhi must grasp the stark reality. In 1947, the Congress contained within itself the entire ideological spectrum, regional forces and what has emerged as the social justice formation. Today they are all outside the Congress. They cannot be put back in the Congress womb. They can only be kept in a coalition like the UPA.
Yes, Oscar Fernandes is doing excellent work setting up party structures up to the block level in UP. This can yield dividends over a decade provided the party comes across to the block returning officers or the district Congress samitis as possible winners in the near future. Can the party revive itself in UP, Bihar? Yes, but only up to a point. And that too when it stitches together arrangements with the regional forces on the following lines: say 30:70 in favour of the regional party for the assembly election and 70:30 in favour of the Congress for the Lok Sabha.
This is just an example. The idea has to be refined. Realistic arrangements must be put in place with regional parties. The dream of reviving the Congress in certain parts of the country is unrealistic because it involves knocking off the legs of the tripod on which the centre rests. The only way to keep a national party in play is in a coalition. The alternative is a United Front minus the Congress (and the BJP) if the party cannot resist the urge to revive and revive in a hurry.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here in this editorial anti-national Sekhar Gupta very intelligently spinning the whole thing. on surface, it looks like criticism but he smartly covers it with praise.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story....t_id=65747
<b>Hand as Fist</b>
<b>The Congress, by grabbing power through pliant governors, will end up only undermining itself</b>
The decision of the Jharkhand governor to invite Shibu Soren to form a government, and then give him almost three weeks to prove his majority, is a travesty of all constitutional morality. The decision on whom to invite to form a government in cases where no party or coalition has a clear majority is not an easy one, and there is no formulaic answer to this conundrum. But, in this particular case, the governor has clearly crossed all bounds of propriety. The NDA was closer to a majority than its rivals, and it claimed to have the support of 41 MLAs. The independents in question had been paraded before the governor. The proper thing to do would have been to invite them to form the government and give them an opportunity to prove themselves on the floor of the house.
There was no justification to hurriedly swear Shibu Soren and then give him a long lease of life to secure a majority. The governorâs decision, coming on the heels of Goa Governor S.C. Jamirâs misconduct in Goa, has again compromised the authority of the governorâs office. The governor has few powers other than to facilitate the making and breaking of governments. It is palpably clear that governors are willing to use this discretion arbitrarily. From a constitutional point of view it is a mystery why governors give weeks rather than a couple of days for governments to prove their majority. Shorter lead times in conducting votes will, at the margins, ensure that independents vote their first instincts rather than act under tantalising incentives.
<b>The Congress Party must take a fair share of the blame in this matter. Whether or not the governor acted on his own behest is beside the point. </b>The party has a shocking record of politicising the office of the governor. One of its first acts in office was to remove three governors and replace them with old Congress hacks. It will now be difficult for the partyâs protestations to carry any conviction. The party seems determined to acquire power at all costs. It was just routed in Bihar, securing less than a dozen seats. It snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Jharkhand. Yet it feels entitled to share in power. The only kind of politics such an aspiration can unleash is a politics of backroom wheeling and dealing. Rather than gracefully accepting verdicts, the Congress is encouraging the worst kind of power politics. It would be too much to expect the party to rise above the temptations of power in the short term. But the Congress should remember that it declined in part because it got a reputation for playing footloose with constitutional values. <b>Its commitment to secularism and its concern for the poor will amount to nothing if the impression gains ground that it colludes with governors to cheat its adversaries out of power. </b>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The coterie can destroy the party
SAEED NAQVI
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story....t_id=65751
One of the most unsettling elements for the UPA government in New Delhi is the Congress desire to revive in UP and Bihar. The UPA rests on a sort of tripod, the three legs of which are Congress, Left, Laloo and company. The Congress and the Left are engaged in a continuous combat in Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal. In Kerala, it is a ding-dong contest, a kind of see-saw bringing UDF or the Left on top. In West Bengal, the Congress is condemned to offer only token resistance.
There were always two parallel tendencies in the Congress â BJP positive and anti-BJP, tendencies inherited from an earlier, pre-BJP period when Purushottam Das Tandon defeated Jawaharlal Nehru at the first Congress session in Bhubaneshwar in 1950.
While the Nehru-Tandon contest reflected differences within the Congress on the nature of Indian nationalism, Indira Gandhiâs cautious stance after her second-coming in 1980 was conditioned by the fear of losing Hindu votes because excessive talk of a so-called Muslim vote-bank was creating a backlash. Rajiv Gandhiâs inauguration of his election campaign in â89 from Ayodhya promising Ram Raj was tactically based on a similar appraisal of electoral politics.
By the time P.V. Narasimha Rao appeared on the scene, mandalisation was a rampaging reality. P.V.âs main support came from MPs from the south. This caused him to contemplate the mandir-mandal mahayudh in the Hindi belt, not like a Nehru but more like Purshottam Das Tandon. Little wonder L.K. Advani described him as the âbest prime minister since Lal Bahadur Shastriâ. In any case, P.V saw Congress revival in the Hindi belt a threat to his prime ministerial longevity. Just in case a revived Congress threw up a leader capable of challenging him! This, in addition to the caste homogeneity he felt for the Mandir forces, who â he believed â stood against the debrahminising tsunami of Mandal.
Preventing the revival of the Congress in the Hindi belt was, ironically, a strategy devised by a Congress PM. The rise and consolidation of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati in UP and Laloo Prasad Yadav in Bihar was one consequence of this policy. The other was the emergence of the BJP-NDA at the Centre.
<b>The May Lok Sabha elections exposed the hollowness of the NDA. Sonia Gandhiâs renunciation placed her on an unassailable pedestal. Under challenging conditions she had humbled the BJP. </b>True, but one fact must never be forgotten. The Congress only has 145 seats in a House of 543. The BJP has 138. P.V. had brought the party down to its lowest tally ever â 140 seats. Sitaram Kesari, as party president, won for the party 141 seats. Admittedly under trying conditions, Sonia Gandhi pulled up the party to 145 seats. It is a stark reality â from â96 to May â04, the Congress has hovered between 140 to 145 seats. All the other seats are with the Left (60 seats) or Mulayam (36), Laloo (24), BSP (19) DMK (16) and so on.
The UPA tripod, intelligently conceived, rests on the above figures. P. Chidambaram, in a brilliant Budget, demonstrated total grasp of these ground realities, without capitulating in any way. Full marks to the UPA government on several other counts â
<b>
foreign affairs, energy security. But just when the nation should have been showering praise on the UPA Budget, look what the party has gone and done. It has embroiled itself in the most inelegant, third-rate political manoeuvres in Jharkhand and Bihar, and it was so avoidable from the start.
Who are the coterie freelancers who have served Sonia Gandhi so poorly? They should be shown the door. Otherwise, the impression will continue to gain ground that she herself is solely responsible for the mess. In their eagerness to hand Sonia Gandhi the trophy of a revived Congress in Bihar, the coterie have gone and scored own-goals in Bihar and Jharkhand.
</b>
Sonia Gandhi must grasp the stark reality. In 1947, the Congress contained within itself the entire ideological spectrum, regional forces and what has emerged as the social justice formation. Today they are all outside the Congress. They cannot be put back in the Congress womb. They can only be kept in a coalition like the UPA.
Yes, Oscar Fernandes is doing excellent work setting up party structures up to the block level in UP. This can yield dividends over a decade provided the party comes across to the block returning officers or the district Congress samitis as possible winners in the near future. Can the party revive itself in UP, Bihar? Yes, but only up to a point. And that too when it stitches together arrangements with the regional forces on the following lines: say 30:70 in favour of the regional party for the assembly election and 70:30 in favour of the Congress for the Lok Sabha.
This is just an example. The idea has to be refined. Realistic arrangements must be put in place with regional parties. The dream of reviving the Congress in certain parts of the country is unrealistic because it involves knocking off the legs of the tripod on which the centre rests. The only way to keep a national party in play is in a coalition. The alternative is a United Front minus the Congress (and the BJP) if the party cannot resist the urge to revive and revive in a hurry.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here in this editorial anti-national Sekhar Gupta very intelligently spinning the whole thing. on surface, it looks like criticism but he smartly covers it with praise.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story....t_id=65747
<b>Hand as Fist</b>
<b>The Congress, by grabbing power through pliant governors, will end up only undermining itself</b>
The decision of the Jharkhand governor to invite Shibu Soren to form a government, and then give him almost three weeks to prove his majority, is a travesty of all constitutional morality. The decision on whom to invite to form a government in cases where no party or coalition has a clear majority is not an easy one, and there is no formulaic answer to this conundrum. But, in this particular case, the governor has clearly crossed all bounds of propriety. The NDA was closer to a majority than its rivals, and it claimed to have the support of 41 MLAs. The independents in question had been paraded before the governor. The proper thing to do would have been to invite them to form the government and give them an opportunity to prove themselves on the floor of the house.
There was no justification to hurriedly swear Shibu Soren and then give him a long lease of life to secure a majority. The governorâs decision, coming on the heels of Goa Governor S.C. Jamirâs misconduct in Goa, has again compromised the authority of the governorâs office. The governor has few powers other than to facilitate the making and breaking of governments. It is palpably clear that governors are willing to use this discretion arbitrarily. From a constitutional point of view it is a mystery why governors give weeks rather than a couple of days for governments to prove their majority. Shorter lead times in conducting votes will, at the margins, ensure that independents vote their first instincts rather than act under tantalising incentives.
<b>The Congress Party must take a fair share of the blame in this matter. Whether or not the governor acted on his own behest is beside the point. </b>The party has a shocking record of politicising the office of the governor. One of its first acts in office was to remove three governors and replace them with old Congress hacks. It will now be difficult for the partyâs protestations to carry any conviction. The party seems determined to acquire power at all costs. It was just routed in Bihar, securing less than a dozen seats. It snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Jharkhand. Yet it feels entitled to share in power. The only kind of politics such an aspiration can unleash is a politics of backroom wheeling and dealing. Rather than gracefully accepting verdicts, the Congress is encouraging the worst kind of power politics. It would be too much to expect the party to rise above the temptations of power in the short term. But the Congress should remember that it declined in part because it got a reputation for playing footloose with constitutional values. <b>Its commitment to secularism and its concern for the poor will amount to nothing if the impression gains ground that it colludes with governors to cheat its adversaries out of power. </b>