- BJP had brought a proposal for 100% FDI in retail in 2002 and now it is one of the biggest opponent of the same.
- Samajwadi Party said they are against FDI and yet they did not vote against it.
- Laloo Prasad Yadav is supporting FDI just because Nitish Kumar is opposing it.
I can go on and on about political parties taking a standpoint just because i) their rival party is taking an opposite stand or ii) their coalition party is taking the same stand. BJP started this whole issue of FDI in retail in 2002 and yet just because Congress is bringing the proposal of FDI, they are opposing the move. If they thought farmers will be at disadvantage, wasn’t it the same in 2002 when they initially proposed it? Samajwadi party says they did not vote against FDI because it would have seen as they are supporting BJP. Hello? The vote was for FDI. If you are who vehemently against FDI, why did you not vote against it? When will our political parties really understand and debate about a policy and then take their decision regarding it. This level of immaturity is really surprising from our political parties.
Congress and BJP go to war over Gujarat Assembly elections starting in a few days. I happened to watch some of the Congress party’s advertisements that were shown during interval in cinema theaters. The whole advertisement which lasted for more than 2 minutes was a song where hand is shown throughout the length of the song followed by congress flag and logo towards the end. There is no mention of any issue, any standpoint of congress on what it is going to do if it comes to power. Narendra Modi from BJP is calling for an issue based discussion because he knows that the only way to win an election is to deliver. But Congress party is openly announcing free sops to people if it comes to power. In fact, they already started inviting forms from general public for a fictitious housing project that they will start if they come to power. And our poor population, in expectation of a free house, obliged their call with long queues outside the congress party offices. Congress is clueless if one asks them a very basic question of such political sops – “Where from you will get the money from?”.
Sadly, issue based politics is taking a hit. Political parties do not let Assembly function and therefore there are no discussions on key political issues. All that is being done is announce free sops to public in expectation of their votes. What happens of country’s economy is nobody’s headache. Just to give another example, Laloo Yadav and Mamta Banerjee made a mess of Railway’s by not increasing fares for so many years. What they kept telling is that poor people can’t pay so fares should not be increased even if Rail passengers have to travel in a crowded compartment in a very inhuman way. Let Mamta Banerjee and Laloo Yadav travel only by trains and that too in general bogies. They will then understand what poor people go through when they are travelling. Then they will know that poor people are willing to pay much more for a better travelling condition. But nobody cares what public wants. Nobody cares what happens to Railways like nobody cared about Air India. It is not surprising that all they want to do is to keep people poor for their own political benefit.
Our politicians are surrounded by so many intelligent people to provide policy suggestions. These learned people can suggest changes for the betterment of this country even if those changes initially may feel harsh. I wish to find a party that takes issue based mature decision which is for the benefit of the country rather than just for their political ambitions.
TRT 