The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has set a new tradition in Indian politics by rewarding those
ministers who have failed miserably in their job, take for instance Mr. Vilasrao Deshmukh,
after 26/11 he was asked to resign as Chief minister of Maharashtra and given a
cabinet berth and now the favorite of all Pranab da who is considered as one of
the worst finance minister, India has got in recent times, at least post
liberalization, is now set to contest for
India’s Presidential post.
India
Inc is definitely happy to see Pranab da moving out of north block to Raisina
hill, much before his term ends. In-fact it is much rumored that India Inc was
trying very hard for him to move out from the current position and contest for
presidential post. The so called trouble shooter of the UPA II govt. has
unfortunately not been able to play the same role for country’s economics, on
the other hand, his role got exactly opposite from trouble shooter to trouble
maker. The denial mode that the entire UPA II gets in for any problem which is
self created or not, is the root cause, they at any given point of time did not
accept that problems do really exist and
further tried to resolve it, be it the Anna movement, the various scams or even
the current financial mess we are in, so much so adamant they are that they
paid no heed even for the rating agencies downgrade threat that was issued,
merely blaming the euro zone for the current
slowdown.
I
always wonder what would be the plight of
an organization whose CEO is of age 80, the CFO (Chief Financial
Officer) age 77, the company secretary age 72 and the HR head of age 68, it is
expected to perform terribly, today we have people of the similar ages heading
our country and are ministers holding various cabinet berth from PM to HR
minister taking crucial policy decisions. Politics and Economics has to go hand
in hand for any country, but it can be surely
handled by two separate class of people. If both are mixed then either of them has to
suffer, and given the callous politicians we have it is needless to say that
the country’s economics will suffer.
The
current government has always been blaming the coalition partner (again the
denial mode) for not allowing them to go ahead with the reforms, but when the
same coalition partner opposed Pranab da for his presidential post, they could
rope in the numbers required, so why not in the case of reforms which are
much needed for country’s interest, why
not, the same numbers can be garnered on these issues, it has become a very
selective approach by the Congress. When
it comes to raising petrol prices or president nomination the coalition partner
does not matter much, but when it comes to passing of FDI limits passing the
pension reforms or the Railway budget, the coalition politics comes at the
centre stage and the country is given an explanation that we have to take care
of our allies. How can you be so selective in getting the support from your
allies.
The
advantage that this govt. has today is lack of opposition we have in this
country. NDA opposes only because it is the opposition party and it is there
duty and right to oppose, given the condition the NDA is today if they do not
get issues sorted out right now, the road ahead for them to 2014 elections
would be very coarse. The situation could have been far different today, if at
all we had a strong opposition party or strong opposition leader who could have
kept the UPA II on their toes. This was clearly visible once again during the
president poll candidature wherein NDA is backing Mr. Sangma only because it
has no other option. The unyielding leaders in UPA II are confident that with
virtually no opposition today they can get away with the biggest of biggest
blunders and by another 2 years they would put all these problems at bay and
face the elections once again.
One
of the epic task the Manmohan govt. facing today is to remove the country out
of the financial mess we have landed ourselves. Dr Singh will have to put the
politician in him to respite for next 2 years and get the Economist out of him
and set in action, it’s only then the country would be in position to see some
better days ahead. He may continue to be silent till the end of his term but
for the balance tenor let his action
speak louder than his words in the best interest of the nation. Get all those
reforms which were put on the backseat by your counterpart to the driving seat
and set the tone of the country’s progress in the right direction. The capital
markets have at least given thumbs up for Dr. Singh as FM and are surely happy
to see Pranab da as new rubber stamp of this country. Alvi da Pranab da.
