07-22-2007, 07:40 PM
Kaun ban gaya Prez
<!--emo&:argue--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/argue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='argue.gif' /><!--endemo--> NATIONAL INTEREST Prime Minister Mayawati, backed by the comrades, no kidding
Shekhar GuptaPosted online: Sunday, July 22, 2007 at 0000 hrs Print EmailThatâs one plausible version of the scary summer of â09. Congress is bought out by the Left , the BJP looks so much like a loser that all its allies have walked away. The Big Two have left the field , for a coalition of the extremely willing to rush in Shekhar Gupta
If somebody compiles a selection of the most hypocritical political statements in our six decades since Independence, the Leftâs argument, that the Republic must have a âpoliticalâ President, but a ânon-politicalâ Vice-President, will rank right on the top. Of course, it could come back to haunt them five years from now when India has to find a new President. It would also blight the prospects of a perfectly decent gentleman like Hamid Ansari, unless the argument is, by then, that he has successfully completed his political apprenticeship while running the Rajya Sabha.
So breathtakingly audacious is their argument, and so remarkable the absence of any effort by Congressmen to counter it, despite murmurs when speaking off the record, that it only confirms the most important single fact that characterises the current political arrangement: that this UPA formulation represents the most stunning leveraged buyout of a government in our political history. The Left has simply leveraged its 60-odd MPs to hijack not just the tone and the agenda of this government but also the lawmaking ability of this Parliament (which is why so many bills supported by a wide majority of MPs canât be passed).
So the Left rejects the first, second and third choices of the Congress for President and forces it to select a regional lightweight who brings in her wake controversies that could dog her entire Presidency and even become an issue in 2009. But it forces on the UPA its own first choice for Vice-President, albeit a much, much better one. You can now imagine how much better this will make the Left look in comparison as the Presidential choice of the Congress battles her way through controversies, unprotected by party spokesmen, proxies and handlers post July 25, while Hamid Ansari shines â and you can have no doubt about that, whatsoever. Give it a year or so, and people will have no doubt who made a better choice, who was wiser of the two and finally who, the Congress or the Left, at least had the freedom to choose.
This is the most weighty question this turn of events has left over the evolving balance of power in our national politics. And its shadow will hang over every political development, every new equation or alliance or arrangement in the run-up to 2009. From a point where both the Congress and the BJP had seemed to be growing, slowly, tantalizingly, building the promise of building rival coalitions with stronger cores in 2009, both are now weakening. The Congress, because it has suborned its political instinct to its desperation to hang on for two more years, and for its continuing nostalgia for the âminority voteâ, and the BJP for the utterly bull-headed, management of its politics by a leadership that looks intellectually, morally and even conceptually bankrupt today. In fact, it looks so much like a loser, that practically all its allies have walked away to bide their time on the sidelines as the game is set up for the big final in the summer of 2009.
You ask any senior Congress or BJP leader in private what they foresee in the next Parliament, and you find a unanimity which is scary: a non-Congress, non-BJP coalition of many, probably headed by Mayawati, certainly backed by the Left. This Presidential election has set in motion the churning for the big one a little too early in the tenure of the incumbent. Such a great pity, the two big parties who should at least provide the notion of a centre of gravity in our politics, now look so hopelessly punch-drunkâ one in defeat, the other, funnily in victory.
<!--emo&:argue--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/argue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='argue.gif' /><!--endemo--> NATIONAL INTEREST Prime Minister Mayawati, backed by the comrades, no kidding
Shekhar GuptaPosted online: Sunday, July 22, 2007 at 0000 hrs Print EmailThatâs one plausible version of the scary summer of â09. Congress is bought out by the Left , the BJP looks so much like a loser that all its allies have walked away. The Big Two have left the field , for a coalition of the extremely willing to rush in Shekhar Gupta
If somebody compiles a selection of the most hypocritical political statements in our six decades since Independence, the Leftâs argument, that the Republic must have a âpoliticalâ President, but a ânon-politicalâ Vice-President, will rank right on the top. Of course, it could come back to haunt them five years from now when India has to find a new President. It would also blight the prospects of a perfectly decent gentleman like Hamid Ansari, unless the argument is, by then, that he has successfully completed his political apprenticeship while running the Rajya Sabha.
So breathtakingly audacious is their argument, and so remarkable the absence of any effort by Congressmen to counter it, despite murmurs when speaking off the record, that it only confirms the most important single fact that characterises the current political arrangement: that this UPA formulation represents the most stunning leveraged buyout of a government in our political history. The Left has simply leveraged its 60-odd MPs to hijack not just the tone and the agenda of this government but also the lawmaking ability of this Parliament (which is why so many bills supported by a wide majority of MPs canât be passed).
So the Left rejects the first, second and third choices of the Congress for President and forces it to select a regional lightweight who brings in her wake controversies that could dog her entire Presidency and even become an issue in 2009. But it forces on the UPA its own first choice for Vice-President, albeit a much, much better one. You can now imagine how much better this will make the Left look in comparison as the Presidential choice of the Congress battles her way through controversies, unprotected by party spokesmen, proxies and handlers post July 25, while Hamid Ansari shines â and you can have no doubt about that, whatsoever. Give it a year or so, and people will have no doubt who made a better choice, who was wiser of the two and finally who, the Congress or the Left, at least had the freedom to choose.
This is the most weighty question this turn of events has left over the evolving balance of power in our national politics. And its shadow will hang over every political development, every new equation or alliance or arrangement in the run-up to 2009. From a point where both the Congress and the BJP had seemed to be growing, slowly, tantalizingly, building the promise of building rival coalitions with stronger cores in 2009, both are now weakening. The Congress, because it has suborned its political instinct to its desperation to hang on for two more years, and for its continuing nostalgia for the âminority voteâ, and the BJP for the utterly bull-headed, management of its politics by a leadership that looks intellectually, morally and even conceptually bankrupt today. In fact, it looks so much like a loser, that practically all its allies have walked away to bide their time on the sidelines as the game is set up for the big final in the summer of 2009.
You ask any senior Congress or BJP leader in private what they foresee in the next Parliament, and you find a unanimity which is scary: a non-Congress, non-BJP coalition of many, probably headed by Mayawati, certainly backed by the Left. This Presidential election has set in motion the churning for the big one a little too early in the tenure of the incumbent. Such a great pity, the two big parties who should at least provide the notion of a centre of gravity in our politics, now look so hopelessly punch-drunkâ one in defeat, the other, funnily in victory.