Thursday, September 04, 2008

Discredited polity !

By Manish Anand

Indian polity stands discredited, with the leakage of the letter of the US President George W Bush to the Congress, which is purportedly in variance with what the Indian Parliament has been told by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on the Indo-US nuclear deal. The Congress led UPA has to face the charge of discrediting the Indian polity. Dr Manmohan Singh had staked his personal prestige to the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Even before the NSG takes a final call in giving the clean waiver to India for nuclear commerce, the Prime Minister faces the threat of misleading tha nation and he must come clean on the damaging reports which have come in the media on the issue.

Is it worth pursuing a multi-billion dollar deal which can be jeopardised at the subjective assessment of the US? Who will take care of the nuclear plants lying idle for want of supply of fuel?

The UPA is falsely boasting the support of the majority of the Indians for the deal by cobbling up more "ayes" than the "nos" during the trust vote on July 22. It "bought" at least a dozen MPs, with its surprising new friend Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh doing the "dirty" job by buying out the opposition MPs. The world saw that the MPs were on sale but the PM was in all hurry to wrap up the deal.

The madness struck Congress is even making this Indo-US nuclear deal a poll issue in the forthcoming general elections with all disregard to the sanity of the popular elections. Did Congress win a single elections on the basis of Rajiv Gandhi heralding the computer revolution? This government had much bigger crisis to handle than to single-mindedly pursuing this Indo-US nuclear deal, which promises Dr Singh and his coterie a place on the "high table", as told by Bush to Singh.

Every Prime Minister must have a legacy to be remembered is the oft repeated rationale given by the political pundits for the passion of Singh for this deal. He could have left much bigger legacy if he had found a permanent solution to the ravages of the river Kosi which has left 2.5 million people in Bihar homeless. This deal must pass through the objective test of the Parliament, which is definitely not through by winning over Amar Singh and getting the saleable MPs on its side.

The Parliament session must be convened at the earliest to seek a fresh mandate or rather let it wait for the next government to make a call.

Indian polity was never so discredited as it's today. Do we feel more pride after the "cash for vote" scandal and brandishing of green notes embossed with Mahatma Gandhi's picture on them in the Parliament. Certainly not!

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