By Mayank Jain:Â
The results are still some days away for the largest democratic elections on Earth but the anti-incumbency mandate is clear in the country, more or less. The Congress led UPA alliance which formed the government for two successive terms has gradually become an eyesore for the people of the country and they actively seek change. The lack of viable choices and clean candidates to replace the existing one is a matter of another discussion in itself.
The Congress’ rule hasn’t been the best ever by any standard and it is patched with more negatives than positives. The party which claims to be secular has overseen period of riots during its 10 year rule multiple times and a summary of all the riots produced below was published here.
These elections have brought out yet another communal face of Congress which used to be all about development in its previous contests. When the development and national growth is failing to woo voters, the party has started to consolidate votes in the communities that are anti-right wing parties and the way to achieve this is through hate speech, mud-slinging and bashing RSS for every other reason on the block.
The motor mouthed party leader, Digvijay Singh gave a clean chit to Muslims on the terror attacks of 26/11 and blamed RSS for mongering terrorism in the country. On the other hand, a WikiLeaks expose of Rahul Gandhi telling a US ambassador that home-grown extremism by “radicalized Hindu groups” is a bigger threat than Pakistan’s terrorist activities is an effort in the same direction.
The party goes on record to give clean chits to the Muslims as if to appease them and lure them towards the bait, and bashes Hindu organizations that are backed by BJP.
With long history of dynastic politics and nepotism in itself, the party blames other parties for violence mongering but the table below clearly points out party’s rule when 1000s of people died in Bhagalpur riots of 1989 and Moradabad riots of 1980 among others. The communal behaviour just doesn’t end here.
No one can forget the atrocious period of emergency during the Indira Gandhi rule of 1975 when people were killed mercilessly all over the country and human rights were crushed under the feet of dictatorial government. Congress claims to have the support of Muslims, a community which BJP allegedly undermines, but they enjoy a much better condition in Gujarat as compared to New Delhi in terms of education and employment according to Sachar Committee findings.
Couple it with the 10 years of inefficient and insufficient governance and you get a clear picture of the dissent that’s raging across the country. From 2G scam that lost the exchequer hundreds of crores to commonwealth games debacle that took its toll with not just in a loss of money but in loss of international respect. It was under the same rule that we witnessed casual handling of rape instances and the capital city becoming a dark dungeon for women. Then came the coal allocation scam which blew the lid off the callous handling of issues of national importance with estimated loss to the exchequer as determined by the CAG to be a whopping 1.86 lakh crores!
To highlight all the scams that the party has been a party to, will be a difficult exercise due to sheer numbers of the revenue we have lost on big ticket corruption. ISRO scam was for 2 lakh crores, Adarsh Housing Scam resulted in 8000 crores of tax evasion, and the list goes on from Bofors scam to UP military land scam which the party’s rule has overseen.
There is some thinking we all need to do about how we ended up here in a matter of just 10 years. The troubles for the country are far from over with the economy slowing down and corruption charges at all-time high. Parliament is far from efficient and a deep sentiment of injustice is prevailing across the country on criminalization of homosexuality.
These elections will be a sure nightmare for Congress, but who benefits the most from this is something which remains to be seen. Hold your horses, 16th May is arriving.