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As Congress tried to find its way through its 84th plenary session, it further landed itself in more chaos and din. Acknowledging the fact that it is incapable of taking on BJP alone, it promised to build an alliance with what it calls as ‘like minded’ parties, whom it dubs as ‘peripheral forces and political parties, with divisive agenda’ who tried to influence national political discourse in mid 1990s in its political resolution. The arrogance of the Congress about its past makes it incapable of realizing that only alliance with some political parties will not help it in winning trust of the people unless it is ready to pledge itself to the nationalistic and democratic principles emanating from the legacy of the national movement collectively built by the people of this great nation. If Congress thinks that it can befool the people with its dynastic, corrupt and regressive communal-casteist-regional-divisive politics, it is in fact treading a suicidal path. Only negative politics cannot help it to bring closer to the people as it only underlines the fact that it has no positive agenda for the nation.
There is no doubt that Congress is at its lowest ebb in its history and there are strong possibilities that it may face further decline. Its repeated recourse to its ‘role in freedom struggle’ may not help it achieve anything as it is not the same Congress which represented the national aspiration to free the country from the foreign yoke. In the post independence era it steeped itself in power-centric dynastic politics even at the cost of dividing the society on caste, religion and regional lines. It has discredited itself in the eyes of people with its long years of misrule, corruption, loot of public money, policy paralysis and regressive policies. While it is trying to sermonise BJP government today it fails to accept the fact that the problem nation facing today is the product of its own failed policies and divisive politics. It has failed the nation on almost all fronts. Its foreign policy cannot take India to establish itself as a leading power as most of its policies remained far from ground realities making India a soft state. Congress is also known for its half hearted and confused policies with regard to terrorism and internal security. As UPA government remained marred by policy paralysis, its economic policies were stung by its inability to act on crucial issues which were further compounded by large scale corruption and loot of public money. It was due to the neglect of agriculture sector that today farmers are facing distress with many irrigation projects remaining only in papers. The long neglect of agriculture by the successive Congress regimes led to a situation wherein large-scale migration from the viallges took place choking the urban centres while having a massive adverse impact on rural sector. Its belief in the policy of trickledown effect and open loot of public sector making them economically unviable to continue led to a situation which created a crisis in the economy. It never generated any confidence in the people about the future and created a hopeless situation for every section of the society with double digit inflation and declining rate of growth.
It is not easy for the people to forget the betrayal of the congress. In order to perpetuate dynastic rule, it created a ruling oligarchy in every sector capturing institutions while blocking the entry for deserving people. Though today it feels compelled to speak highly about Hinduism and Rahul Gandhi visits temples during his political tours but no one can forget that it practiced the politics of minority appeasement in extremely naked form in the name of ‘secularism’. How far it’s committed to the glory of Hinduism is evident from the way its Karnataka government is trying to divide Hinduism for votes. It seems that it has learnt no lessons from AK Antony report on the defeat of Congress in 2014 elections which pointed out about its anti-Hindu image among the people. Instead of introspecting about its ideological deviation and discussing the means to rescue Congress from the clutches of dynastic and anti-democratic politics, Congress has unfortunately chosen to harp on anti-Modi and anti-BJP falsehood which no one believes in the country, not even the Congress people. It has made the Congress plenary session an exercise in vain and hopelessly futile.
shivshakti@kamalsandesh.org