This argument is not exactly on this home minister and his performance. It’s about high politics as practised by India’s largest and oldest political party and how it has shot itself in the foot three times over, in three key areas. These are the three areas that the voter today is most concerned with, and if the party and its coalition lose in 2009, it will be largely because of its failures on these. And for none of these will it have an alibi. No Left pressure, no blackmail by allies. The party’s internal balance of power took precedence over the demands of governance and, amazingly, also of re-electability.
The three areas of self-inflicted failure are internal security, HRD and Power. On each the UPA won’t even be rated one out of ten by even its staunchest supporters. Each was manned by one of its own senior leaders, so there are no allies to blame. All three to have been given these key jobs were veterans, in fact the senior-most Congress figures in this cabinet. Then what went wrong?
Simply, that each one was a man most unsuited for his charge.
Before I explain why, it may be instructive to look at what a mess the UPA has been left with in each area. Much has been said already on internal security, yet we need to underline the fact that in these four years more policemen have been killed by terrorists of various kinds — killed, mind you, just ambushed or bombed at will, very few have actually died fighting — than ever in our history. The Congress’s managers can commission any polling agency to check out the party’s most loyal voters on what they think of this government’s performance on internal security and the answer will most likely be a unanimous expression of shock and disgust. This kind of woolly-headedness from a party which fought terrorism as no other, which gave India the image of being a tough state behind a soft exterior. Under the UPA and Patil, India became a sheep in sheep’s clothing. This Government began its management of internal security on a false, fake note, allowing an encircled Naxalite leadership in Andhra safe passage. Since then it’s been all downhill. Nothing will salvage the UPA’s record on internal security now, not the sacrifice of any more brave policemen like Delhi’s Mohan Chand Sharma, not even if its home minister junks his bandhgalas for some crumpled dhoti-kurta.
... contd.
