‘Utterly Perverted Alliance’ would be a more apt description of the UPA dispensation running, or rather, ruining the nation for the last two years. That politicians cannot think beyond the next election …make it by-election …unlike statesmen whose vision spans generations has never been proven more emphatically. If what agitates them most, as revealed by their words and deeds is any indication, the Congress ministers just emerge as a bunch of Neros fiiddling away in discordant notes, either oblivious to the burning issues or as a deliberate ploy to divert attention from their impotence.
Some samples:
When the official mass gambling den, passing under the respectable nomenclature, stock market, went bust, the utterances of not just the Finance Minister but the entire monetary hierarchy of the nation merit close attention. P.Chidambaram, the suave custodian of the nation’s finances spoke thus: I have talked to the RBI governor and there is no liquidity problem. Money would be provided to those who want to answer margin calls. These ‘comforting words’ were promptly echoed down the line and followed too to the letter, leading to some recovery, albeit, till the next crash. Now the question on the layman’s lips: So what if the brokers go broke? After all, it is part of the game and in any case they were only gambling! Why should the Finance Minister go out of the way to their rescue, throwing all banking norms to the winds, when there are more pressing demands on his time and the nation’s resources? How many times has the ‘suave’ FM, let alone rising to the rescue, even offered such assurances to the debt-ridden farmers, who are committing suicide in droves all over the country? Or to the millions of citizens struggling to make two ends meet? Or to the scores of small businessmen running from pillar to post for just a hand loan to meet a commitment? Indeed, a very painful perversion of priorities by the nation’s financial benefactor!
While even a blind shot by the Pandava Arjun can hit the mark, the neo-Arjun with a quiver full of quotas can deliver a clean mis-hit even with all eyes open. The Reservation Asthra that he unleashed in all dynastic zeal, with the UP elections figuring as the not too distant target, may well miss the mark with the caste polarisations there getting a bit too stark for Congmen’s comfort. While the forward castes are likely to move their accounts from the Cong bank to the BJP’s, the BCs, OBCs, dalits and minorities are unlikely to shift their loyalties in a big way from Mayawati, Mulayam etc. Heads or Tails, Cong seems to lose, thanks to Arjun’s arrow-turned-boomerang! But politics apart, real issues like literacy for the unlettered multitudes, improving the quality of primary education, expansion of infrastructure, training of faculty etc do not even seem to figure in the scheme of things of our honourable human resource destruction minister! Aah, but Arjun Singh is no statesman, just a petty political prankster. By the way, the committee formed to find an answer to the quota quiz has come out with an ‘urgent’ investment budget of a whopping Rs8000 crores of non-recurring and Rs 2000 cr of recurring expenditure to ensure the general category does not lose out because of 27% OBC quota. What suicidal ad-hocism!
The Da Vinci code had raised the hackles of the faithful all over the Christian world. Yet, even overtly Catholic countries refrained from imposing restrictions on the movie, let alone banning it. But secular India is different. Here minority vote is a veto and minority voice, a gospel. So, little wonder, no less a person that the Information Minister, Priyaranjan Das Munshi doubled up as censor board officer, saw the movie in the company of some Christian reps, then cleared the same, Albeit with disclaimers and thus performed his secular karma. Now, one should not take the cue and petition the Minister for special shows of scores of movies that routinely criticise or caricature Indian gods. Dis-information ministers of secular India will have no ears for children of lesser gods and in any case naive Indians still believe that ministership is an exalted posting and a minister’s time most valuable! But the resourceful reverends knew better!
Really, such a queer sense of priorities in Congress psyche is not surprising. It results from the voluntary subjugation of all interests, national, party and individual, to the first family’s. The Congress has lost power in Kerala; continues to be exiled from red Bengal; was unable to clinch cabinet berths in TN; is woefully dependent on increasingly powerful allies at the Centre. Yet the Congmen are celebrating. Reason? Saint Sonia has won in Rae Bareilly!And lo, Rahul and Priyanka are coming up quite admirably! That’s all that matters to this spineless, shameless tribe. The nation’s honour, their own party’s hallowed history, the reputation of men of mettle like Manmohan and even Kalaam, the looming shadows of Volcker and Quatrochchi, rising bloodbath in Kashmir …nothing is of consequence when compared to their zeal to protect, preserve and promote Sonia, their supreme priority!
For them, anarchy in the country is a worthy price so long as the monarchy at Janpath prevails!
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