The Manmohan Singh headed UPA government at the Centre has clearly become lameduck. The Congress is too demoralised to drop an anchor to the UPA, which appears to be a ship adrift on high sea. Except for gains in relations with Pakistan, which are also only virtual in nature, the UPA has been going on and on on policy paralysis for quite a long time to boost sentiment in any class of the people.
The controversy surrounding the Army and Chief of the Army Staff (CoAS) V. K. Singh is an example of the kind of indecisiveness within the UPA. A Cabinet minister from the Congress in the UPA summed up the state of affairs when he confided his view on reported bugging of the office of the Defence Minister A. K. Antony. "You bug to tap conversations not the silence," quipped the Minister. A former aide of Antony had to say that "the man does not take any action, just sits on and on". Ironically, Antony headed committee would soon give a report on the electoral losses of the Congress in the recent state Assembly elections.
Another Union Cabinet minister, also hailing from the Congress, in the UPA rued the fact that there was no leadership in the country. In 2009, Manmohan Singh was a leader (non-political) who ensured that the Congress led UPA was voted again into power, thanks to his image of an honest man scripting India's economic march. In 2012, the Congress does not find any leader. The Uttar Pradesh state polls verdict clipped the wings of Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, who had pinned hope for a good result to leap into top echelons of national leadership. He will need another two years to undo the loss of image due to UP poll debacle.
The only big state where the Congress is in power is Andhra Pradesh where YSR (Y Rajshekhara Reddy) is no more and the party is more or less in suicidal mode. The Congress appears in sorry state in Rajsthan. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Odhisa, Tamil Nadu have all gone to powerful regional kshatraps. The BJP rules in other states.
Some have credited Anna movement for high voting turnout in states, which went to the polls recently, UP and Goa in particular. Social networking sites appear to be building quite a silent campaign against the UPA in a big way. Team Anna has set an eye on the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. People open their newspapers most often in the morning everyday with an anticipation, that some new scams would have been reported. The perception of corruption at large has knocked off all the goodwills that Manmohan Singh enjoyed till three years ago.
But the question which is more pressing is that whether the principal Opposition BJP is ready to step into the shoes of the Congress and lead NDA back into power after 2004. The BJP chief Nitin Gadkari even after four years at the helm of affairs does not appear to understand North Indian politics, which explains his blunder in inducting Babu Singh Kushwaha in the party fold just on the eve of the UP elections. Anger of the people against the BJP was so much that the saffron party lost even Ayodhya seat to Samajwadi Party.
The BJP, however, has regional kshatraps of its own who can electorally deliver in the domain. Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Chhatisgarh's Raman Singh, Gujrat's Narendra Modi have the wherewithal to withstand anti-incumbency factor. But the void at the top level in the BJP is hard to fill in, with party patrirach L. K. Advani too old to lead the NDA in 2014. The BJP is also a party known for fratricidal war.
Therefore, India appears headed for 2014 Lok Sabha elections, with both the principal claimants to power not in strong health. The SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav believes that if his party could win 50 Lok Sabha seats in UP, he could stake claims for Prime Minister's post by bringing around all non-Congress and non-BJP parties. Numerically speaking such a scenario would still require outside support of either the Congress or the BJP, which in itself is a recipe for instability. Lots of churning out will take place in the run up to 2014, which may hold the key to the way the politics of the nation may be headed.
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