NDA shone in comparison

may 22nd, 2008

the UPA is a do-nothing government with an embarrassing invertebrate as 'leader'. see this nytimes article for the kind of damage a knock-kneed person can cause to the country as he is browbeaten by other, smarter, more aggressive foes. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/22/opinion/22thrall.html?em&ex=1211688000&en=2f1e58ab4f96436b&ei=5087%0A

incidentally this article shows yet again how obama is a fraud. but i will instantly become an obama fan and campaign as vigorously for him as possible if mccain chooses -- perish the thought -- that white wanna-be rice christist bobby jindal as his VP candidate. i will choose the devil over the deep sea, because obama doesn't necessarily have a big beef against india (unless my conjecture is right and he's a manchurian candidate for the mohammedans and the chinese).

but jindal will almost certainly launch a nuclear strike against india either a) to *prove* finally that he is not at all indian, b) to help the christist goal of having the christist north-east secede. he is an extreme opportunist, although most converts are opportunists he stands out. he figured out early on that he couldn't change his race, so his best bet to be a successful politician was to become a bubba and a vigorous and extreme one at that.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sush

NDA shone in comparison

By Ajoy Bose

Op-ed dailypioneer.com – May 22, 2008

 

As the Congress-led UPA crosses the four-year mark, it finds itself weighed down by confusion and a diminished Prime Minister. Lack of firm policy at home and abroad, coupled with skyrocketing prices and a faltering economy, make the Government look rudderless and irresolute

 

As the United Progressive Alliance Government celebrates its fourth anniversary, it is interesting to compare the current mood in the corridors of power with that prevailing after the previous National Democratic Alliance regime had completed four years in power. Indeed, the contrast is palpable. While the NDA appeared to be brimming with self-confidence, led by a larger-than-life Prime Minister, the UPA looks exactly the opposite -- a confused Government with a visibly diminished leader.

 

The Vajpayee Government as it entered its last lap was hailed by large sections of the media as sitting pretty on both the domestic and foreign policy fronts. India seemed poised for rapid industrialisation, fuelled by closer relations between the NDA regime and both global powers, the US and China. Official clout was decisively wielded by the chief prime ministerial aide, Mr Brajesh Mishra, even as the two main stalwarts in power, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Mr LK Advani, were, or at least appeared to be, on the same page after several years.

 

Compare this with the daily media bashing of the Manmohan Singh Government for its lack of direction in both domestic and foreign policy-making. Spiralling prices and an economic slowdown have gone hand-in-hand with the bottom falling out of the India-US nuclear deal and a tentative blow-hot-blow-cold relationship with China. To compound the dismal image of the present regime, the Prime Minister and his close aides appear demoralised and weakened amid internecine warfare within the Congress.

 

The other interesting contrast between the NDA and the UPA at the four-year mark is the relative difficulty or ease with which they negotiated their initial years in power. Mr Vajpyaee and the NDA were besieged by a sea of troubles that ranged from the Kandahar surrender to the terrorist attack on Parliament to the Gujarat riots -- a series of crises that rocked the first few years of the previous regime. Compared to the NDA, the Manmohan Singh Government sailed through its first three years with barely a serious crisis.

 

Not surprisingly, the NDA looked even better as it seemed to dramatically improve its position from its earlier instability as the five-year Lok Sabha term drew to a close. The reverse is true for the UPA whose sudden descent into political uncertainty and lack of direction from a fairly peaceful first three years in office has made Mr Singh look that much more fragile.

 

This is no longer just a matter of media projection but what the political protagonists themselves believe. After all, such was the self-confidence of the NDA that it advanced the Lok Sabha poll to take advantage of what it thought was a groundswell of public support for Mr Vajpayee. On the other hand, the UPA is not even properly celebrating the fourth anniversary of its Government and indications are that it will hold the next general election only at the very end of its full term.

 

It is also difficult to forget the electoral boost to the BJP just after the NDA completed four years in power, compared to the series of electoral setbacks suffered by the Congress this year. At the end of 2003, the BJP swept to power in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, ousting Congress Governments in these key north Indian States. In contrast, the Congress has suffered a series of poll debacles over the past year in Gujarat, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. A question mark hangs over the party's prospects even in the old Congress bastion of Karnataka where it should normally have been the front-runner in the aftermath of the ignominious collapse of the BJP-Janata Dal (S) alliance that has forced an early poll.

 

Having drawn the above comparison between the mood within the NDA and the UPA at the four-year mark, it needs to be pointed out what did happen in the 2004 Lok Sabha election despite the euphoria that preceded the poll. Indeed, the celebrations by the NDA were short-lived and its slogans of 'India Shining' and 'Feel Good Factor' describing the up-beat mood in the ruling coalition only made the electoral defeat that followed all the more unpalatable. As a matter of fact, the collapse of the BJP-led coalition, which had felt so good about itself after four years in power, has almost become a permanent warning signal for political parties in this country not to start counting their chickens before they are hatched.

 

The electoral outcome of 2004 underlined some important paradigms of politics in India today. It showed that the surface stability of a Government or the authority of a leader can hide the undercurrent of popular sentiment that can sweep both aside. The defeat of the NDA was also a result of the loss of key allies of the BJP like the DMK, the BSP and Mr Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP, ironically caused by a sense of over-confidence in the ruling party. Most important, it underlined the perils of believing media hype about the supposed popularity or unpopularity of a regime.

 

Congress apologists may point at the downfall of the NDA at the final hurdle after looking invincible at the penultimate one and claim that their party will traverse the opposite path from a position of gloom and doom to ultimate success. But they will do so at their own risk. For although there are many reasons for the NDA to have fallen on its face despite feeling cock-a-hoop at the four-year mark, none of them remotely helps the Congress to retrieve itself from its present hopeless situation.

 

The Congress would have to be very desperate indeed to genuinely believe that things are looking so bleak at the moment, they can only get better by the time the Lok Sabha election is held.