Monday, June 29, 2009

New Government, New Hope

Last month, congress had unexpected clean sweep proving all the projections of one more collaborative govt and one more early elections wrong and formed the new government. It seems like people of India didn’t want to spend their hard earned money to early elections at the same time didn’t find any good alternate to the previous govt.

I guess there were few things that brought things in favour of congress. First and most important the populist schemes during their last tenure such as NREGA, Loan Weavers etc. However, I believe that those are good politics but very bad economics. Rural India felt that the govt is concerned about them and that was probably the reason people also looked with hope towards the luring promises made by congress leaders during their election campaigns such as rice and wheat at the rate of Rs 3 a kg for poor people. Also with initiatives by Rahul Gandhi connecting more and more youth with party and village stays during his tour turned votes into congress favour. Urban India too found it most dependable party for a stable govt and Manmohan Singh as good PM candidate. I must mention one more thing that the negative critics by the second largest party BJP weren’t bought by the people.

Anyway, I don’t want to focus too much analysing the pre election factors those worked or didn’t work for congress or BJP and other parties. What I want to mention is the new energy in the newly formed govt. It seems finally the politicians also have realized that they can’t fool people for long and if they want longer political career not only they would have to work but also have to take the account of their work to the people. After around a month of formation of new govt there is new hope and for the very first time to me the new cabinet seems to be responsible to people. Previous governments also had common minimum programs with their allies and target for first 100 days but this time all the ministers are making their own target for first 100 days work plan and looking for bold unconventional steps than just continuing previous govt work. HRD, Defence, Foreign, Finance, Home and other ministries seems to be open to new ideas and set to take strong steps. Nadan has been made the chief for National Identity Card scheme with the power of a cabinet minister. So govt doesn’t want work to be delayed in bureaucratic system. Only time will tell us to what extent they would be able to meet their target and even meeting those would result into betterment of people or not but one thing is for sure that they have been able to bring new energy and new hopes. For the very first time I can see a political will power to change which was missing since long to reform governance. If this works out it is going to start a new trend in Indian politics which would be a trend of responsible and accountable govt and political leaders would also have a makeover of their Neta Ji image. My heart felt congrats to Manmohan, Sonia and Rahul for enlightening new hopes.