11-29-2004, 08:24 PM
From Asian age...
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Rip Van UPA
- By Siddhartha Reddy
Worldwide, every government begins with a six-month honeymoon, the UPA began with a hibernation. It has been the sleepiest beginning ever for any newly elected government. But for the noise made by the communists, the UPA would have slipped into a coma.
The government is still perceived to be run by Sonia Gandhi, and Manmohan Singh is considered Her Majestyâs Office-Keeper, hibernating while the economy worsens, the Northeast explodes, Kashmir gets messier and Hindu anger escalates against an insensitive regime.
The problem is, the Sonia-Manmohan combination is bereft of any leadership content: no class, oratory, communication skill, nor impressive ideas and comprehension of governance. With such captains the UPAâs rudderless ship aimlessly drifts into the storm of 2005 and will be shipwrecked by incompetence.
The two are not committed to strengthening Karunanidhi nor courageous enough to fight Jayalalitha. They pamper a Taslimuddin and punish a Shankaracharya! They drop the corruption cases against Satish Sharma and allow the framing of cases against the Kanchi Shankaracharya! Their priorities are completely skewed.
On corruption, the government keeps yawning except for waking up to take over the scam-ridden Global Trust Bank. On NDA scams the government is busy snoring. It slept even when Amarinder unconstitutionally denied Haryana its water. The cost of this six-month hibernation will soon come to light.
No major initiative has been taken to have a nationwide impact as the government sleep-walks without any objective, boringly awaiting final departure. No other government has handled Parliament or Opposition worse than the UPA, but of course the Buddah (Oldiesâ) Janata Party is busy destroying itself and the only opposition to the UPA is coming from the communists. The Chinese-Maoist conspiracy to destabilise Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha, Telangana and Karnataka is going unnoticed.
This is the first time in India that we have a Cabinet that does not function as a cohesive unit, based on mutual trust, cooperation and coordination. It is full of egocentric individuals and lacklustre nominees of party bosses. It is a bunch more preoccupied with legal battles than performance. Just check out the Lalu-Paswan brawl, the TRS-Congress spat and the Manmohan-Natwar anonymity! While an India-Pakistan summit meeting is possible, a Manmohan-Natwar summit is impossible. The Prime Minister does not want his foreign minister. The foreign minister does not like a junior being Prime Minister. So either Sonia Gandhi has a meeting with both of them, or finds replacements. Otherwise, hawks will torpedo the Shaukat Aziz-Manmohan Singh agreement on India-Pakistan banking cooperation.
Parliament should put an end to the unnecessary drain of the public exchequer. Soniaâs people are bossing over the Cabinet as an extra-monitoring outfit resulting in the drain of crores of rupees. Natwarâs people are burdening the exchequer with a foreign policy advisory committee. Mani Shankar Aiyarâs people are having a ball with the ex-IFS committee, paid for by diesel-petrol-cooking gas buyers. The ruling family makes weekly trips to London (son Rahul) and Dubai (son-in-law Robert) with their security, spending crores on travel bills, paid for by poor Indians. So all expenditure details should be given to Parliament.
Manmohan is a Prime Minister without authority, without any power to punish or reward. He cannot change portfolio, induct or drop. He is not even expected to coordinate the Cabinet functioning. The allies are their own bosses. So to stay occupied, he goes on foreign and domestic tours. For other countries, he is after all the Prime Minister.
The chief ministers occasionally need the PM to announce Central largesse or inaugurate mega-projects. So routine ribbon cutting, banquets and empty speech making are becoming the rule of the day. When he visits a complex state like Jammu & Kashmir and speaks on complex issues, without debating with his allies and the concerned ministers to formulate an agreed agenda, then a fiasco happens.
The ministers are not answerable to the PM. They consult Sonia Gandhi on political appointments and brief her on policy matters. But she doesnât comprehend, therefore, their policies are her policies.
HRD minister Arjun Singh performs according to the dictates of those who vote for the Congress, and those who donât, disapprove of his agenda. He would be an ideal home minister but Sonia Gandhi doesnât trust him.
Defence minister Pranab Mukherjee belied the alliesâ expectations by not exposing NDA corruption in defence deals. He prefers finance or home, but the Congress president has no such plans for him.
Home minister Shivraj Patil is a staunch Sonia loyalist. He is a victim of fellow Maharashtriansâ media-campaign. The Northeast is being mishandled, the process of changing governors is being bungled, and the Shankaracharya crisis is getting messier. Patil is taking the flak for Sonia Gandhiâs lack of wisdom. Sonia could induct A.K. Antony as replacement.
Finance minister P. Chidambaramâs smart-talk is being negated by an unimpressive economic scenario. The communists want him to go. Inflation is galloping, incomes are dwindling, unemployment and prices are rising, and the crisis is being compounded by a rise in petrol-diesel prices internationally. The next budget could be presented by Manmohan.
Foreign minister Natwar Singh is Sonia Gandhiâs favourite. She doesnât understand foreign affairs, but with even national security adviser J.N. Dixit (a Natwar appointee) advising a change of foreign minister, she realises that Natwar is a wrong choice. The bottom line: she would be delighted if Natwar ceases to be foreign minister.
Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is competent. He won Maharashtra by inspiring confidence in farmers. But he canât be PM with just nine MPs. He is keen to get into either North or South Block heading a powerful ministry which he has been promised by Sonia Gandhi, for letting the Congress have its own chief minister in Maharashtra.
Railway minister Lalu Yadavâs performance is better than all his predecessors from Bihar. But during Cabinet meetings he overrules the PM. The alliance appreciates, though not the Opposition, that he allowed a Godhra inquiry.
Even the stars donât want to disturb the UPAâs hibernation. The astrologically favourable time for a major Cabinet reshuffle is only after January 15. But Shibu Soren insists, and Manmohan inducts him with a yawn.
Sonia Gandhi would have been Prime Minister, but for President Kalam. Whoever would have accompanied her to Kalam, would have been PM. She gave the crown to Manmohan to be just a titular, decorative head until alternate arrangements are made.
If Soniaâs nominee succeeds Kalam, she hopes to be Prime Minister. If the government lasts till 2009, Rahul hopes to be PM. Before that, if Manmohan stumbles, then A.K. Antony could be PM. In 2005, if the allies form a secular front with 200 MPs, their nominee will be PM.
Maharashtrians have already given a verdict on the UPA: unimpressive. That the Congress-NCP is in power there, is because of Sharad Pawar. After six months of hibernation, itâs time for the UPA to wake up. Another six months would make the communists enforce euthanasia, the mercy-killing of this government.
Siddhartha Reddy can be contacted at siddharthareddy@hotmail.com
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Rip Van UPA
- By Siddhartha Reddy
Worldwide, every government begins with a six-month honeymoon, the UPA began with a hibernation. It has been the sleepiest beginning ever for any newly elected government. But for the noise made by the communists, the UPA would have slipped into a coma.
The government is still perceived to be run by Sonia Gandhi, and Manmohan Singh is considered Her Majestyâs Office-Keeper, hibernating while the economy worsens, the Northeast explodes, Kashmir gets messier and Hindu anger escalates against an insensitive regime.
The problem is, the Sonia-Manmohan combination is bereft of any leadership content: no class, oratory, communication skill, nor impressive ideas and comprehension of governance. With such captains the UPAâs rudderless ship aimlessly drifts into the storm of 2005 and will be shipwrecked by incompetence.
The two are not committed to strengthening Karunanidhi nor courageous enough to fight Jayalalitha. They pamper a Taslimuddin and punish a Shankaracharya! They drop the corruption cases against Satish Sharma and allow the framing of cases against the Kanchi Shankaracharya! Their priorities are completely skewed.
On corruption, the government keeps yawning except for waking up to take over the scam-ridden Global Trust Bank. On NDA scams the government is busy snoring. It slept even when Amarinder unconstitutionally denied Haryana its water. The cost of this six-month hibernation will soon come to light.
No major initiative has been taken to have a nationwide impact as the government sleep-walks without any objective, boringly awaiting final departure. No other government has handled Parliament or Opposition worse than the UPA, but of course the Buddah (Oldiesâ) Janata Party is busy destroying itself and the only opposition to the UPA is coming from the communists. The Chinese-Maoist conspiracy to destabilise Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha, Telangana and Karnataka is going unnoticed.
This is the first time in India that we have a Cabinet that does not function as a cohesive unit, based on mutual trust, cooperation and coordination. It is full of egocentric individuals and lacklustre nominees of party bosses. It is a bunch more preoccupied with legal battles than performance. Just check out the Lalu-Paswan brawl, the TRS-Congress spat and the Manmohan-Natwar anonymity! While an India-Pakistan summit meeting is possible, a Manmohan-Natwar summit is impossible. The Prime Minister does not want his foreign minister. The foreign minister does not like a junior being Prime Minister. So either Sonia Gandhi has a meeting with both of them, or finds replacements. Otherwise, hawks will torpedo the Shaukat Aziz-Manmohan Singh agreement on India-Pakistan banking cooperation.
Parliament should put an end to the unnecessary drain of the public exchequer. Soniaâs people are bossing over the Cabinet as an extra-monitoring outfit resulting in the drain of crores of rupees. Natwarâs people are burdening the exchequer with a foreign policy advisory committee. Mani Shankar Aiyarâs people are having a ball with the ex-IFS committee, paid for by diesel-petrol-cooking gas buyers. The ruling family makes weekly trips to London (son Rahul) and Dubai (son-in-law Robert) with their security, spending crores on travel bills, paid for by poor Indians. So all expenditure details should be given to Parliament.
Manmohan is a Prime Minister without authority, without any power to punish or reward. He cannot change portfolio, induct or drop. He is not even expected to coordinate the Cabinet functioning. The allies are their own bosses. So to stay occupied, he goes on foreign and domestic tours. For other countries, he is after all the Prime Minister.
The chief ministers occasionally need the PM to announce Central largesse or inaugurate mega-projects. So routine ribbon cutting, banquets and empty speech making are becoming the rule of the day. When he visits a complex state like Jammu & Kashmir and speaks on complex issues, without debating with his allies and the concerned ministers to formulate an agreed agenda, then a fiasco happens.
The ministers are not answerable to the PM. They consult Sonia Gandhi on political appointments and brief her on policy matters. But she doesnât comprehend, therefore, their policies are her policies.
HRD minister Arjun Singh performs according to the dictates of those who vote for the Congress, and those who donât, disapprove of his agenda. He would be an ideal home minister but Sonia Gandhi doesnât trust him.
Defence minister Pranab Mukherjee belied the alliesâ expectations by not exposing NDA corruption in defence deals. He prefers finance or home, but the Congress president has no such plans for him.
Home minister Shivraj Patil is a staunch Sonia loyalist. He is a victim of fellow Maharashtriansâ media-campaign. The Northeast is being mishandled, the process of changing governors is being bungled, and the Shankaracharya crisis is getting messier. Patil is taking the flak for Sonia Gandhiâs lack of wisdom. Sonia could induct A.K. Antony as replacement.
Finance minister P. Chidambaramâs smart-talk is being negated by an unimpressive economic scenario. The communists want him to go. Inflation is galloping, incomes are dwindling, unemployment and prices are rising, and the crisis is being compounded by a rise in petrol-diesel prices internationally. The next budget could be presented by Manmohan.
Foreign minister Natwar Singh is Sonia Gandhiâs favourite. She doesnât understand foreign affairs, but with even national security adviser J.N. Dixit (a Natwar appointee) advising a change of foreign minister, she realises that Natwar is a wrong choice. The bottom line: she would be delighted if Natwar ceases to be foreign minister.
Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is competent. He won Maharashtra by inspiring confidence in farmers. But he canât be PM with just nine MPs. He is keen to get into either North or South Block heading a powerful ministry which he has been promised by Sonia Gandhi, for letting the Congress have its own chief minister in Maharashtra.
Railway minister Lalu Yadavâs performance is better than all his predecessors from Bihar. But during Cabinet meetings he overrules the PM. The alliance appreciates, though not the Opposition, that he allowed a Godhra inquiry.
Even the stars donât want to disturb the UPAâs hibernation. The astrologically favourable time for a major Cabinet reshuffle is only after January 15. But Shibu Soren insists, and Manmohan inducts him with a yawn.
Sonia Gandhi would have been Prime Minister, but for President Kalam. Whoever would have accompanied her to Kalam, would have been PM. She gave the crown to Manmohan to be just a titular, decorative head until alternate arrangements are made.
If Soniaâs nominee succeeds Kalam, she hopes to be Prime Minister. If the government lasts till 2009, Rahul hopes to be PM. Before that, if Manmohan stumbles, then A.K. Antony could be PM. In 2005, if the allies form a secular front with 200 MPs, their nominee will be PM.
Maharashtrians have already given a verdict on the UPA: unimpressive. That the Congress-NCP is in power there, is because of Sharad Pawar. After six months of hibernation, itâs time for the UPA to wake up. Another six months would make the communists enforce euthanasia, the mercy-killing of this government.
Siddhartha Reddy can be contacted at siddharthareddy@hotmail.com
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