BY Sajay Laloo
The recent rather over -confident but flop show by the BJP in the Assembly Elections held to the five states in India reflect the fact that people of India prefer safety of women and children to the protection and care of cows. The BJP is still an amateur, even though an aged political party which needs to learn a lot about the Indian system and polity. History has proven that India is a country of, “Unity in Diversity,” hence the system of governance cannot escape from that concept. India is not Hindutva and Hindutva is not India. This is the age of development, the age of employment and the age of a progressive generation and no longer the age of building concrete statues and preaching. BJP’s policies are no different from a case where without even a proper examination or investigation, the doctor declares a person sick and starts prescribing medicines and treatment. This will instead make a healthy person sick and become weaker.
BJP was crying from day one that India is sick; India needs immediate surgery to remove the tumour of corruption and faulty policies from its system and started waging war against what has been engraved in their beliefs. But little did they know that waging war is not the solution but having the arsenals is. There is no dearth of brains in BJP but the skills are severely lacking. They only know how to think but not how to implement those thoughts keeping in mind the needs of the citizens of this country. It’s time for the BJP to invent a new mantra and discard what is no longer saleable for its survival in the future. The Congress Party has in recent times realized that it has to come out of the appeasement politics and to gauge the minds of voters. The metamorphosis has brought the party back into the limelight and fetched three major states into its kitty this time.
A cocooned culture with constant infusion of fear about insecurity and religious terrorism thrives within a limited territory only. Such life does not exist beyond the places of worship and fanatic circles. Youth these days are more concerned about their careers, future, jobs, happiness and security and less interested with religion. The just completed assembly elections are a clear writing on the wall that BJP is not going to get more than 180 MPs in the upcoming 2019 general elections. It is a wee bit late for the BJP to go for any damage control at this juncture. The Party was hallucinating with the charisma of Modi and his pan- India image and neglected the problems which the common man is facing at the grassroots level. It seems BJP took the statement of Omar Abdullah as Gospel truth and foolishly believed him when he said, “In a nutshell, there is no leader today with a pan- India acceptability who can take on Modi and the BJP in 2019. At this rate, we might as well forget 2019 and start planning/hoping for 2024”.
It took ten years for power to get into the heads of Congress men and women and be drunk with it, but just four years for BJP. Nevertheless the BJP is a necessity for Indian politics and it should pop up once in a decade to be a show stopper or alarm bell to wake up the Congress from the power- drunken state. The Congress knows and understands the people of India better, but at times life becomes too easy for them and they tend to be lazy and not willing to come out of their air conditioned rooms and feel the heat outside. Modern day elections are fought on merit, delivery of promises, performance and development. The era of appeasement, tall promises, sweet talk, shedding tears and emotional blackmailing are over. No matter how influential, popular or strong one is, if he deviates from the track which he has set during the elections, he will definitely bite the dust at the end of the five year (in) glorious journey.
In Meghalaya, people had very high expectations from the present Government as it had portrayed that everything is ugly on the other side of the mirror and had promised during the elections to restore its beauty. However, as time passed by its true colour has started surfacing which is full of sweet words but scarce action. The present Chief Minister is living in the modern day stone age (laying of foundation stones here and there) and delivering tall promises about giving priorities to almost every nook and corner of the state. When he addressed the teaching community during Teachers’ Day he said education is the most important sector in our society. The very next day his Government expressed its unwillingness to provide social security to teachers or to release their pay on time.
Then comes the Sports sector where he showered praises on our sportspersons and promised to lift the standard of sports in the state. But when it comes to action, his Government is not ready to promote any sportsperson; not even the minimum sponsorship for their travelling expenses. As a result our sportspersons (with international ranking) could not make it to several international events due to the paucity of funds. And the list goes on and on and on. Performance wise, the present NPP –led Government in Meghalaya headed by its national president, Conrad K Sangma is way below expectation. Its level of performance is not impressive at all and the gossip has already started everywhere. It has failed to convince and impress our neighbour Mizoram to buy its ideology and standard of performance after seeing Meghalaya under its rule. This was not without the several requests made and high voltage campaigns by most of the seniors NPP leaders from Meghalaya. The total votes obtained by NPP in the recently concluded assembly elections in Mizoram were simply pathetic. The result of the upcoming District Council elections will be the first test report for the one year old NPP led Government and the Lok Sabha elections will reveal the level of confidence and trust people have on the Chief Minister and his party’s ideology especially in the Garo Hills region.
A real leader doesn’t make promises for every issue brought before him, but delivers whatever he has promised. Simply talking without working is a fairy tale as narrated by story tellers. I don’t think the present young and dynamic Chief Minister would like to be remembered as a one hit wonder in the history of Meghalaya’s politics. Before I forget, I bet that so far he has not given any commitment to make Meghalaya a safer place for women and children by reducing, if not containing, the rising crime rate especially the cold blooded murder of a number of women in Meghalaya.
(The writer is an environmental rights activist)