The Asian Independent 16 - 30 Nov. 2019

www.theasianindependent.co.uk
WORLD
16-11-2019 to 30-11-2019
23
Congress Party sans Gandhis
Tons of papers by thousands
of popular writers in India &
abroad have been written while
giving advice to the Gandhis on
how to revive the party. A few
like Sagarika Ghosh suggested
forming a new party called the
“Swatantra Congress Party”
without ideological baggage.
Mark Tully, a renowned writer
has suggested to shed darbari
culture & centralization of
power. In my observation, nothing
of such sorts needs to be followed
by the Gandhis to run the
party.
The BJP is not a party with a
difference in the matter of politics.
Not a leaf can budge without
Narendra Modi and Amit
Shah`s permission in the BJP.
Jagat Prakash Nadda, a current
working President of the BJP
political strategy has failed partially
to win a clear cut majority
in Haryana and Maharashtra for
the BJP despite marooned media
and economic resources. Before
the 2014 general elections, Amit
Shah and Modi proclaimed to
make it “Congress Mukt
Bharat” but the various state as
well Haryana and Maharashtra
election results have shown that
the BJP is no more a political
party that can be trusted fully
anymore. People of India now
know that the BJP and its leaders
are making false promises.
Most of the promises made in
the BJP manifestos are unfulfilled.
People also know that the
NDA under Modi`s incompetence
has no financial capacity
to carry out those promises. The
poor farmers have already sent a
clear & loud message to the BJP
that no more lies.
New India under
the Modi government
is reeling under economic
debt.
We cannot blame completely
the Gandhis for not winning a
full majority in various elections.
Rahul Gandhi in his
capacity worked hard before the
2019 elections but the minds of
the people of India were confused
by the marooned media
houses which run stories full of
lies against Nehru and Gandhis
24×7. New young voters do not
read the history of the congress
party. Neither has the time to
read because nowadays, the
majority of youngsters are found
engaged on social media. The
news and views against Nehru
and Gandhis are uploaded by the
BJP media department 24×7
thereby young voters get confused.
The Congress party under the
leadership of Sonia Gandhi
chose leaders like Navjot Singh
Sidhu who quit Congress and
joined the BJP. There is a long
list of such political opportunists
in every political party who
have no patience. Quick political
power, social status, wealth
creation is the mantra of the
majority of the young political
– Dr. Rahul Kumar, PhD
leaders such as Sidhu. When
young leaders come to the congress
party they dare to defy the
senior leaders as such in the case
of Amarinder Singh, Chief
Minister of Punjab. I completely
disagree with Mark Tully (in his
article, ‘The Congress must bid
farewell to the Gandhis” published
in HT when he says that,
“Amarinder Singh was the only
Congress chief Minister of a
major state to resist the BJP. Let
me remind Mark Tully that it is
not only Amarinder
Singh’s political success
that can be
applauded for grabbing
Punjab state
from the greedy paws
of the Akali-BJP
alliance. There are two important
reasons behind his political
success; One is the people of the
state had made up mind against
the corrupt Badal and His son
government, other was the
infighting within the alliance.
The two terms of the Badal
family government under the
nose of the BJP looted the state
of Punjab with both hands. The
people of Punjab was tolerating
the corruption but when Badal
family and his cronies started
suppressing socially, politically
the leader of the opposition parties
then people got fed up with
the Badal family and the BJP.
Dalits girls were raped under
the nose of the Badal family
and no concrete action was
taken against the Sikh uppercaste
rapists. In many rape
cases, the victims could not register
FIR because of political
and social patronage of the
Badal family to the rapists. At
the same time, the RSS workers
in the state of Punjab got
immense strength and political
patronage to torch the members
of the marginalized communities.
For example, a Dalit youth
belonging to Ambedkar Sena
was shot by the Shiv Sena and
Hindu Suraksha Samiti. This
news jolted the state of Punjab
mainly due to favoritism on
behalf of the Badal family to
these Hindu outfits. More 35
percent Dalits in the state of
Punjab felt betrayed by the
Badal Family when it took several
days to register FIR against
the shooters. The Akali-BJP
alliance was rejected
by the people of
Punjab because of
such several factors.
India`s politics, like
in the developed
nations of the world,
has changed. The role
of regional political
parties has got strength
with the emergence of regional
leaders who know better local
issues and are presumed to be in
a better position to influence the
voters. The Congress party did
not indulge in horse-trading like
the BJP. The winning GOA was
easily handed over to the BJP by
the Congress party because the
congress party has no culture of
horse-trading.
The majority of the regional
party leader is saleable as a
result the BJP gets a chance to
buy & form the government. On
the other hand, the BJP has CBI,
ED and other law enforcing
agencies which can bend any
powerful politician to the BJP
knees. In the case of Haryana,
the BJP knows that the Chautala
family is notorious for corruption.
Had Dushyant Chautala,
the JJP chief shook hands with
the congress, he and his clan
members would have faced
CBI, ED by now? Let us evaluate
the position of Shiv Sena
today? The Shiv-Sena leaders
know it very well that if they
keep on pressuring the BJP for
Dy Chief Minister post they are
going to face CBI, ED in the
coming days. The result will be
the fragmentation of the Shiv
Sena. Uddhav Thackeray, the
chief of Shiv Sena shall not be
able to prove the source of
income that he had spent during
the state election. People, in
general, do not know what kind
of business the Uddhav
Thackeray family runs. And
what is the source of their
income? From where they got
huge money to spend on the
state election. Of course, The
BJP has all the necessary information
to book the leaders of
Shiv Sena. So, anytime, the BJP
can launch an inquiry to screw
the bolt of Shiv Sena chief
Uddhav Thackeray.
In the past, the political success
of the BJP can be attributed
due to corrupt regional leaders
who are supposed to be in politics
only to make wealth not to
serve the country. If we go
50years back, there were not so
many regional political parties
and regional leaders it is, therefore,
the congress did not face
any competition to retain power
in the center and states. Now the
scenario has changed. The BJP
is a two men party that is worse
than the dynasty.
In my opinion, Congress not
required to change the name of
the party; congress needs not bid
farewell to the Gandhis. The
need is to inform the people of
India about the anti-poor, antifarmers,
anti-Dalits, anti-
Muslims, anti-Christians, anti-
OBCs policies of the Modi government.
After Haryana and
Maharashtra results, the dent
has been made by Congress.
From two states results in favor
of Congress partially, God has
made up mind to help the
Congress in one way or the
other Prof Vivek Kumar, teaching
sociology at the Center for
the study of social systems,
school of Social Sciences,
Jawaharlal Nehru University
once said, ‘People cannot be
changed, they change by themselves’
– Dr. Rahul Kumar, Ph.D.
Dr. Rahul Kumar, Ph.D.
Jawaharlal Nehru University,
Delhi. India. He is an independent
researcher and senior media
columnist. He is working currently
with the “The Asian
Independent UK” newspaper as
a Bureau Chief.
His book on “Elderly
Punjabis in Indian Diaspora”
traces trajectories of Elderly
Punjabi migration to U.K. He is
a member of the Editorial
Committee of Global Research
Forum for Diaspora and
Transnationalism (GRFDT)
New Delhi. India. The views
expressed by the author in this
article are personal and does
not necessarily reflect the official
policy of the paper.