The bill gained traction when UPA is reeling under the impact of multiple scams like 2G, Commonwealth Games and Gandhian activist Anna Hazare sought to tap the popular anger by holding centre stage in the national Capital. This, besides growing public anger over inflation.
Three years after the Anna agitation, the contentious legislation seems to be reaching its culmination with Hazare's one time protege Arvind Kejriwal decimating Congress in Delhi by painting it as corrupt just as the clock is ticking for national election.
While Rahul's thrust is in the right direction, Congress's bid to gain the moral high ground on graft front could be late as the bill is bound to be seen through a political lens given the way its is being revived just as the fortunes of the ruling party are dipping.
Congress sources said the sudden upping of ante over Lokpal is of a piece with Rahul's intervention on the ordinance to protect convicted legislators and support for gay rights. More such initiatives can be expected in the near future as the leader is keen on securing rights of disadvantaged and disempowered groups.
Queries abound if Congress would have shown the newfound urgency on Lokpal had it done well in the recent assembly polls.
And, that's the nub of Congress's tragedy. It made a lot of sense when Rahul on Saturday reminded the skeptics that Congress brought in the most lethal anti-graft measure - Right to Information Act — when "we were doing fine". Just that it lost way somewhere in UPA-II.
Insiders wish that Congress stalwarts were more humble on Hazare-Lokpal when the party was still on the ascendant though the scams had begun to tumble out. They believe the party positioned itself poorly for bad times with flawed fire-fighting measures like stubbornness over scams, the lost Parliament session over the demand for JPC probe et al.
Graft per se may not have been so fatal politically had it not been for inflation, malgovernance and most significantly, arrogance that came to be associated with UPA mandarins. Put together, it has become a cocktail that Congress seems to have no antidote to.
For Rahul personally, his belated bid to appear to lead, like his public veto of law to save convicted legislators, suffers from a time lag. He was always perceived to control the levers of party-government even though he chose to duck decision-making. That perception now undercuts his attempt to play the "insider-outsider" by distancing himself from UPA and its policies.
The problem for Congress is that it left key initiatives for too late. And with fortunes dipping and elections looming, it has a huge task at hand to convince people that it is not making virtue of a necessity.
via Top Stories - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNH9wN0Vet16N4NBGidYnBPbx_wSpA&url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Congresss-bid-to-piggyback-on-Lokpal-too-little-too-late/articleshow/27381267.cms
Put the internet to work for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment