By the time this appears, Karnataka may have fallen to the BJP, Goa may have done the same, with only Madhya Pradesh marking time before the same thing happens there.
What a roller coaster political ride we have been subjected to, and the analogy is apt. Reading about the horse-trading, the flight from home states, the herding into hotels for ‘safekeeping’ of MLAs who are jumping Congress ship in favour of the ruling BJP, one is enraged to the point that it actually causes nausea.
Huge sums of money are also being casually mentioned. Rs 40 crore is supposed to be the amount the ‘ship-jumpers’ are being offered, and a rumour that one chap in Karnataka is holding out for twice that amount, is actually causing much hilarity.
A television debate on NDTV has the BJP spokesperson wondering (in an injured voice) why so much opprobrium is being heaped upon his party when it is the Congress MLAs to blame. They aren’t being bribed, he says earnestly. They are desperate to join the ruling party so that their ill-gotten gains can be safeguarded.
The incredible aspect is that the sums cause little disbelief. After all, with inflation rampant, rumoured prices of MLAs have to go up as well, and the BJP is allegedly sitting on an Aladdin’s cave of riches. In fact, there are many who think that King Croesus, he of the unimaginable riches, with a name synonymous with wealth, could have learned from our rulers, provided he was as unscrupulous.
The rage is intensified further when one reads of the Congress party taking three months just to accept the resignation of its President Rahul Gandhi, on the grounds that he is responsible for the poll debacle which gave the BJP its biggest mandate, effectively decimating the opposition and making this country into a one-party autocracy.
The biggest complaint about Rahul Gandhi from voters in Amethi, the erstwhile Gandhi stronghold that the family held for three decades, is that he was an absent MP. His father Rajiv did a lot, but he died in 1991. Till 1996, development continued in the constituency, then things died down.
The younger Gandhi represented Amethi for three terms. Of these, from 2004 to 2014, the Congress government ruled at the Centre. Enough time surely to continue the development his father started and for which he is still remembered.
In 2014, the Congress got its first warning from the BJP, regarding its plans to wrest this heavily symbolic constituency from the Gandhi family. They sent the brash, unsuitable Smriti Irani. She lost by over 400,000 votes. The prince was secure in his “gaddi”.
But surely he felt some unease when Ms. Irani kept returning to Amethi during the five years that followed, kept reaching out to voters, made herself a familiar face, provided ready assistance to those who wanted it. This year, she won, by just 55,000 votes, but what a huge victory it was! She also proved that she took the long view.
As someone who did NOT vote for the eventual winners, I have to admit that Rahul Gandhi deserved what he got in Amethi. In my opinion, he should have lost in Wayanad as well, but other political considerations ruled there.
On Wednesday morning, he landed up in Amethi and addressed a rally in his scratchy, end-of-the-dusty-road voice. “Narendra Modi is Prime Minister, Yogi ji is Chief Minister and the Member of Parliament is from the BJP (Smriti Irani). We have to do the work of the opposition now. You know that the work of the opposition is most enjoyable. It is easy. So now you have to do the work of the opposition in Amethi."
When in extremity, tell a joke. Except that the electorate are sick of jokes. The voters want justice from the Congress Party for acting like a lousy, stupid, apathetic opposition. For refusing to accept the realpolitik of the coalition era.
For Congress MLAs who jump ship so easily, completely forgetting that they have been voted in because they represent the Congress. For behaving as if the job of the Opposition is to act like a bunch of irresponsible, self-serving, greedy clowns that fail to make us laugh.
Let the BJP do what it does best – snatch a victory by any means available to them. The least the Congress can do is learn from their mistakes. Our votes are valuable. But the Opposition is still to learn this most important lesson of all.
