PM cannot blame Opposition for his failures
Given that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has made it a habit to blame the Opposition for every crisis that has struck his Government, there is nothing new in his latest rant that the Opposition has become “obstructionist” and “less patient than ever before”. None of these is really an allegation because both the obstruction and the diminishing patience are a direct result of the regime's increasing brazenness in throwing propriety to the winds and allowing corruption to flourish in the highest positions.
But before we proceed further on this matter, will Mr Singh tell us if the Opposition is responsible for the abysmal slump in GDP growth — it has plunged to a decade low of five per cent for 2012-13IJ That the Opposition has not been obstinate without reason is evident from the fact that Mr Singh's Government has had to eventually act on the issues it raised; the problem is that the Prime Minister did so after substantial damage had been done. For instance, when the non-UPA parties vociferously demanded the resignations of Mr Pawan Kumar Bansal and Mr Ashwani Kumar from the Cabinet on grounds of propriety, the Prime Minister refused to heed them.
This resulted in continued ruckus in Parliament and a virtual washout of the Budget Session. Finally the Prime Minister secured the resignations of the two Ministers, but by then Parliament had been adjourned sine die without being able to take up important Bills for approval. If only Mr Singh had done the needful earlier, the Budget Session would not have been disrupted. Earlier too, Parliament sessions had suffered in a similar fashion on other issues where the Government had arrogantly brushed aside voices from the Opposition. The lokpal matter and that relating to the 2G Spectrum scam are recent examples where Parliament proceedings came to a halt for days together because of the Centre's obduracy to act. Again, as in the recent case of the two Ministers, the Government had to eventually act. But again, the action came after Parliament sessions were rendered meaningless because a united Opposition demanded accountability.
Mr Singh's attempt to ridicule the Opposition by claiming that its frustration is derived from being defeated in the general elections two times in a row is precisely the kind of arrogance that has completely undone the credibility of the Government. The multiple scams that have surfaced are not the products of a ‘frustrated' Opposition. It's not the ‘frustrated' Opposition that has messed up the country's foreign policy. Mr Singh does not acknowledge that he has failed to capitalise on the mandate that the people gave his party in two consecutive lok Sabha elections. What else can explain the swift and dramatic erosion in the Government's credibilityIJ Before the Prime Minister and his media managers raise their hands in protest and claim that the assertion is baseless, they need to only look at various opinion surveys the Press has done.
All of them confirm what the Congress-led regime does not want to believe, and they can’t all be wrong. If the Prime Minister really believes in the illusion to help soothe his nerves, he does so at his own peril. But then, he has little to lose personally; he's as unlikely to return as Prime Minister as the Congress is unlikely to retain power.