Will return of the Gandhi scion resurrect or bury the party?

Of late the return of the Gandhi scion has taken much of newspaper and media space. The congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is back from Thailand after 56 day sabbatical. I fail to understand why press is going gaga over his break and his return. Congress party and Gandhi family passing through testing times. Though winning or losing elections is a common phenomenon for any political party, but for congress’s winning record has hit rock bottom and people are wary of everything happening in Congress. Rahul Gandhi undoubtedly has every right to take a break from this gruelling political acrobatics. But even his staunch advisers feel that this is very badly planned and timed move. Presently I feel congress party has reached a terminal stage, where any call taken by Mrs Gandhi can either resurrect it or bury it completely.The recent statements by Digvijay Singh and Sheela Dixit are indicators of conflict within the party. And these conflicting voices its leaders will certainly have adverse impact on the party image.

But it is not an uncommon to hear dissenting voices in the face such massive defeat. Whenever the party suffered massive defeats a section of its leadership gets impatient to leave the party by finding some scapegoat or some excuse, which was clearly visible during 1969, 1989 and 1995 elections .

It is time for Congress to take a call whether it still needs a reluctant leader at the helm. Even though there have been such instances in the party in the past. It is time to assert itself when the BJP’s graph is falling as per the latest India Today report. It is facing very rough weather in getting the Land Acquisition Bill passed. In fact Mrs Sonia had led the entire opposition to President for revocation which augers well, as not only the opposition political parties are opposing it, even the prominent social groups like Medha Patkar, Anna Hazare etc are also opposing it tooth and nail, on the plea that the Govt is hobnobbing with the Corporate Houses, as far as this bill is concerned.

Despite its worst electoral defeat no one can write off its relevance as age old party. It's history shows numerous instances of electoral defeats and come backs. But this time around it has not yet shown any indication of its revival and it is wasting the opportunity to have the Govt on mat on issues that opposition and social groups both within and outside the parliament are opposing. Whatever it is Mr Rahul, has certainly failed to enthuse the workers and voters as well. His unorthodox campaign style and vanishing tricks have raised questions about his ability to lead and to keep the party together. Inspite of all its failure we find a person carrying its flag in every Indian village but we don’t see any credible leader leading them. It is one of the main reasons for its disappearance locally.

If proper steps are not taken to revive the party now, this party will perish. I feel it would have been more apt had Rahul accepted the responsibility for the defeat of the congress and resigned with dignity rather than doing something now, which will trigger more intense speculation and provides ammunition to others. I personally fail to understand Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s insecurities.

PV finally gets his due

Recently the NDA Govt has taken a decision to have a memorial built for our  forgotten former Prime Minister Mr  PV NarasimhaRao, in New Delhi,which is very much a laudable one. Mrs Soniaji has to hang their heads in shame as their own leader who backed nuclear testing, ushered in liberal reforms and played a pivotal role in look east policy has been denied a proper place in history.  And credit goes to Mr Narendra Modi and one should be happy that at least after a decade of his death Memorial will be built in Delhi. But the fact of the matter is Mr Naidu APCM must have certainly put lot efforts in this since he is shrewd politician, having an eye on Bharat Ratna for NTR, must have tried to avoid conflict of interest between PV & NTR. He has been trying hard for Bharat Ratna for NTR while KCR of course made out a case for PV's BharatRatna. Now we have see how far KCR would succeed vis a vis his AP counter part Naidu. The point to ponder is that in New Delhi it has streets named after all and sundry from conquerors to councillors and it is also a fact that at least 3 members of his cabinet Mr Arjun Singh, Mr MadhavRao Scindia and Mr Rajesh pilot ,each have street named after them but not for PV.

 His Finance Minister Mr Manmohan Singh respectfully paid tributes to him every year during his Prime Minister ship. But his Govt was neither able to build a memorial nor was able to award him with nation's highest honour, which he richly deserved for his contribution to the economic and foreign policies. But surprisingly the move to honour him had been sponsored by non congress Govts of AP &TS.

 Since Mr P V was able to provide strong political leadership to the nation at a particularly difficult situation in the recent history he deserves more when compared to others .

 He had demonstrated greater political courage in advocating and leading the new economic policy which came into being in the year 1980's, than his predecessor Mr Rajiv and it  was without  doubt an architect of India's foreign policy. We all have seen him that as Minister for Industries he signed the famous Industrial Statement Policy of July 24th 1991 which ended license, permit and quota Raj. As all of us know that Mr PV went beyond liberating Indian enterprise from bureaucratic hassles, celebrated its rise and he was the one to award Bharat Ratna to most deserving business leader JRD Tata in 1992.

 The only blot on his prime ministership was the demolition of Babri Masjid. He had been a consensual leader who befriended all and reached out to all opposition leaders at any point of time. He was not flawless but which leader is? Inspite of his failings nor mistakes he still deserved the highest honour in addition to the proposed memorial.