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| Will people replicate Mumbai in Jammu? | | Upcoming Civic Polls | | Rustam
Jammu, Feb 19: Maharashtra Chief Minister and former in-charge of J&K Congress Prithavi Raj Chavan and those who managed the civic polls in Maharashtra, held the other day, are a dejected lot these days. They are clueless and under severe attack from all sides. The reason is the splendid victory of the Shiv Sena-BJP combine in the Mumbai Municipal Corporation (MMC) elections, as also their commendable performance in six other corporations out of a total of ten. Chavan has said he is amazed and feeling surprised; he is just not in a position to explain the reasons which culminated in the spectacular victory of the Shiv Sena-BJP combine. People are demanding action against Chavan and others of his ilk saying they are responsible for the humiliating defeat of the Congress and at a time when the election process in UP is on. On its part, the Congress high command (in this case Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi) has sought a report from the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) on what precisely led to the rout of the Congress party.
It needs to underlined that the Shiv Sena-BJP combine, plus the Republican Party of India (RPI), inflicted a crushing defeat on the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), despite the fact that the former, barring the RPI, had been controlling the richest corporation (MMC) in the country for the last more than 16 years; despite the fact that the incumbency factor was very much there to jeopardize its poll prospects; despite the fact that the Congress and the NCP for the first time fought together in the civic polls against the Shiv Sena-BJP combine; and despite the fact that Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thakeray's nephew Raj Thakeray's Maharashtra Nav Nirman Sena (MNS) was very much there in the fray to upset the Shiv Sena-BJP calculations by cutting into its vote-bank. In other words, the Shiv Sena-BJP combine defeated the Congress-NCP combine despite the fact that the latter and the MNS had made all the necessary preparations to get the Shiv Sena-BJP combine out of the MMC.
There are reasons for the Congress poll managers and the high command to feel perturbed and alarmed. Why because the victory which the Shiv Sena-BJP combine score against the Congress, the NCP and the MNS is not an extraordinary victory. Chavan had, it bears recalling, announced on the eve of elections that the civic elections were elections between the Congress-led UPA and the BJP-led NDA and that the defeat of the Shiv Sena-BJP combine in the civic elections would mean victory of the UPA over the NDA.
Why did the Congress-NCP lose? They lost because they have lost touch with the masses; because there is disconnect between the ruler and the ruled; because the Congress and the UPA have made the life of the people across the country miserable; because the Congress has handed down to the country a thoroughly corrupt administration; because there is a dangerous nexus between the Congress and the India Inc; because the Congress has outraged the nation by indulging in communal and divisive politics; because the Congress has vitiated the socio-religious and political atmosphere in the country by sharpening angularities between and within the communities; because the Congress has willfully and deliberately weakened the constitutional institutions; because the Congress's economic policies are pro-rich and anti-poor; because the Congress leadership is highly arrogant; and so on. This is the general perception in the country.
The situation as it exists in what the Panthers Party now rightly terms as Jammu Pradesh is worse as compared with the situation prevailing in other parts of the country. The Congress has not only played foul with the people of Jammu province by not fulfilling the promises it solemnly held out in 2002 and 2008, including the commitment that it would set up regional development board/regional council to empower them. The Congress has also outraged their sensitivities by making common cause with the rabidly anti-Jammu NC leadership and becoming a party to all that the NC has been doing to further harm the interests of the people of Jammu Pradesh and the nation. Besides, the Congress, like the Congress-dominated UPA, has institutionalised corruption in the state.
Will the suffering and oppressed people replicate Mumbai in Jammu Pradesh and avenge their humiliations? People are the real masters; they have to decide. They have to choose between those who have cheated them and subverted the mandate and those in the opposition. The opposition also has to change its style of functioning to reassure the people that it, unlike the Congress and the NC, would not ditch them and that it would always identify itself with them and their needs and aspirations. The people of Jammu Pradesh have to deliver a verdict similar to the one the awakened people of Mumbai delivered on February 17 if they want to lead a dignified life and enjoy the rights as are enshrined in the Indian Constitution. |
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