The UPA 1 Government was bad enough, but much of the blame for its non performance was attributed to a recalcitrant Left, with Congress pleading helplessness. The neo liberals were only too glad to damn the left for the ills of the Government. That the Government during the last one year of its tenure, in the post left scenario, hardly did anything was lost on them.
But UPA 1 is turning out to be an angel compared to UPA 2. Propped up by three self serving partners - Trinamool Congress, DMK and the NCP, who are a law unto themselves - the Congress has gone back to thinking that it has the divine right to do whatever it wants.
Inflation has started to not pinch, but bite the common man. Most of the commodities have become a luxury. With near Zimbabwe like inflation, Government decided to decontrol the petroleum prices ( I supported the move with a caveat that prices be allowed to fall as well when international oil prices fell - this has not happened and is not likely to happen ), resulting in inflation spiralling further. The Government harps about reducing the subsidy given to the underprivileged, while billionaire businessmen get away with tax exemptions (which is another form of subsidy) and land at subsidized rates (which is misused) that amount to many many times the subsidy given to the poor.
Corruption has always been a hallmark of Congress regime. But now it is so brazen that one shudders the impact it will have on an impressionable youth. Raja of DMA swindled thousands of crores in the auction of 2G spectrum, Pawar has been playing havoc with the food sector for 6 years now, less said about Mamata, the better- people are afraid to travel in trains these days for fear of accident, they are afraid to travel in our national carrier - thanks to mismanagement by Praful Patel, and travelling by roads is a nightmare, thanks to the delay in completion of Golden Quadrilateral/ north-south/east-west highways, a games no one wants which has overshot its budget by 1000 times and has already seen 11000 crores spent with hardly any returns has become a national shame. But the Prime Minister, and his boss - Sonia Gandhi, is oblivious to everything. There is absolutely no accountability. The PM is so toothless, he cannot even change the portfolio of Raja, that his junior congress ministers say boo to him everytime they see him. Never in the history of India has there been such an ineffective Prime Minister who is a failure on the Economic front, which is supposed to be his forte, on the National security front - Kashmir, Mao rebels, Radicalism in evidence, on the Foreign Affairs front - the Pakistan fiasco and US treating us like a vasal, cases in point and on the political front - the guy cant even win a lok sabha seat, and has to reach the Parliament through the backdoor Rajya Sabha.
When Maoists are slaughtering jawans, when kashmiri youths are pelting stones at the CRPF, when Quereshi ticks of our Home Secretary, when prices rocket, when a toilet roll is purchased for Rs 4000 (Commonwealth Games fiasco), when an audit reveals that our Jawans are being fed substandard food, when our women athlete dont feel safe under a male coach, when there is corruption all around, when the guilty are not punished, when we dont hang Afsal Guru who tried to blast the Parliament, when the PM dont or cant take action against the obviously corrupt - what we are seeing is a waning of authority and with it a loss in national pride. This is a precusor to a revolution.
