Delhi High Court blast: Corruption-inflation-terror triple whammy has hit Manmohan Singh government
Corruption scandals are corroding the government's credibility, unabated price rise is skewering household budgets and terror is clouding the public mind with fear and anger.
By Rajeev Deshpande, TNN | Updated:
NEW DELHI: The Manmohan Singh government is facing a mid-term crisis of colossal proportions. Corruption scandals are corroding the government's credibility, unabated price rise is skewering household budgets and terror is clouding the public mind with fear and anger.
The corruption-inflation-terror triple whammy has hit the government when the national election is still 32 months away and that is at the heart of the Congress's dilemma as it lurches along, its managers looking like hapless plumbers who plug a leak only to see another spring up.
Barely had the Anna Hazare stir subsided that the Delhi High Court blast brutally drove home just how vulnerable big cities are to terror attacks, once again forcing the government's besieged and increasing stressed leadership to face up to dealing with a fresh outrage.
The incessant battering the government has received since mid-2010 when the first Commonwealth Games scams began unraveling, has taken a heavy toll of the top leadership with fissures within the Cabinet Committee on Security widening and attacks from within the Congress demoralizing key ministers.
After the sartorially obsessed Shivraj Patil, home minister P Chidambaram is a huge improvement. His critics are voluble, but there is no obvious alternative. Party criticism on his naxal strategy, inter-ministerial rivalries blocking intelligence integration and dependence on states for implementing security strategies has made Chidambaram a reluctant home minister.
If Chidambaram's strengths – his perseverance and attention to detail – are sapped by politicking, dissonance between the home and finance ministries and the Prime Minister's preoccupation with day-to-day firefighting make Team Manmohan appear at odds with itself.
Some ministerial changes in the last reshuffle have paid off, but leaders like law minister Salman Khurshid and tribal affairs minister V Kishore Chandra Deo need time to show results. The damage control mode is never switched off and UPA-2's big political programmes neither capture centre stage nor gain traction.
The Congress-government gap is serious cause for worry in itself, but the absence of Sonia Gandhi has exposed a troubling drift in the party as well. The party did not fashion a coherent or consistent response to the Hazare agitation and its parliamentary tactics were also unconvincing.
Although Opposition BJP overdid its blockage of Parliament over the Gujarat Lokayukta issue, the question has arisen whether Congress has a clear vision of its objectives? If it is to run a government for more than two years, it needs to pass legislation and show results. Needling BJP does not seem a clever way of achieving this.
Politics does not envisage a Congress-BJP détente, but it is in the interest of the ruling party to get its agenda like reforms in land acquisition, national food security, tax reform and vigorous anti-corruption initiatives rolling if it is to recapture a middle India drifting out of its orbit.
Price rise has finally begun to bite after UPA-1 escaped more or less unscathed. The theory that higher wages due to rural employment guarantee, loan waivers and higher procurement prices insulate Congress at the national level is fraying. There is real anger over inflation that hurts the poor while the middle classes despise rising home loan rates.
The corruption-inflation-terror triple whammy has hit the government when the national election is still 32 months away and that is at the heart of the Congress's dilemma as it lurches along, its managers looking like hapless plumbers who plug a leak only to see another spring up.
Barely had the Anna Hazare stir subsided that the Delhi High Court blast brutally drove home just how vulnerable big cities are to terror attacks, once again forcing the government's besieged and increasing stressed leadership to face up to dealing with a fresh outrage.
The incessant battering the government has received since mid-2010 when the first Commonwealth Games scams began unraveling, has taken a heavy toll of the top leadership with fissures within the Cabinet Committee on Security widening and attacks from within the Congress demoralizing key ministers.
After the sartorially obsessed Shivraj Patil, home minister P Chidambaram is a huge improvement. His critics are voluble, but there is no obvious alternative. Party criticism on his naxal strategy, inter-ministerial rivalries blocking intelligence integration and dependence on states for implementing security strategies has made Chidambaram a reluctant home minister.
If Chidambaram's strengths – his perseverance and attention to detail – are sapped by politicking, dissonance between the home and finance ministries and the Prime Minister's preoccupation with day-to-day firefighting make Team Manmohan appear at odds with itself.
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Some ministerial changes in the last reshuffle have paid off, but leaders like law minister Salman Khurshid and tribal affairs minister V Kishore Chandra Deo need time to show results. The damage control mode is never switched off and UPA-2's big political programmes neither capture centre stage nor gain traction.
The Congress-government gap is serious cause for worry in itself, but the absence of Sonia Gandhi has exposed a troubling drift in the party as well. The party did not fashion a coherent or consistent response to the Hazare agitation and its parliamentary tactics were also unconvincing.
Although Opposition BJP overdid its blockage of Parliament over the Gujarat Lokayukta issue, the question has arisen whether Congress has a clear vision of its objectives? If it is to run a government for more than two years, it needs to pass legislation and show results. Needling BJP does not seem a clever way of achieving this.
Politics does not envisage a Congress-BJP détente, but it is in the interest of the ruling party to get its agenda like reforms in land acquisition, national food security, tax reform and vigorous anti-corruption initiatives rolling if it is to recapture a middle India drifting out of its orbit.
ADVERTISEMENT
Price rise has finally begun to bite after UPA-1 escaped more or less unscathed. The theory that higher wages due to rural employment guarantee, loan waivers and higher procurement prices insulate Congress at the national level is fraying. There is real anger over inflation that hurts the poor while the middle classes despise rising home loan rates.
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