THE NEED FOR A STORNG OPPOSITION & THE SELF DESTRUCTIVE CONGRESS PARTY

All agree that democracy works best when the opposition to the ruling party is strong. There is an absolute necessity for a balance in governance that can only be provided by a strong opposition party. We have seen that in nations when the incumbent party accumulates excessive power without a strong opposition, it goes autocratic. There are many examples of it across the world and at home.

Huge incumbency & concentration of power in the hands of few individuals in the parties of yesteryears had given birth to many regional parties. In many Indian states viz: Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, MS, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Punjab etc., we see very strong regional parties; many of them ruling the states now. However, at national level, these regional parties have not been able to make major impact, as their focus is on their respective states.  

The Indian National Congress (Congress) that ruled the country for many terms continuously, is a sick party today. Most of the regional parties of the country are actually those splintered out of the Congress. Still the party then had enough strength to play at national level to form government, even if in a coalition format which is no longer the case now. Over the years, the Congress had become rudderless. The Gandhi family, without much accountability, had failed to hold the party together. Even within the mother-son-daughter, there are differences on many issues. The elders in the party (Manmohan Singh, AK Antony, Motilal Vohra, Pawan Bansal etc.), have no opinion and acts as ‘yes men’ to the family. Leaders such as Chidambaram, Oommen Chandy etc. are there but are indifferent. Within the organisation hierarchy of Congress, many had established ‘checkmate’ between each other to protect self interest and stop others going up. With gross inactivity and incumbency at its peak, some ‘thinking’ (?) people;  Kapil Sibal, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Manish Tewari, Sashi Tharoor etc had formed a Group of 23, asking questions and seeking remedies from within which is not taken kindly by the acting president and the family and the group is being strongly resisted. At every state, be it Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan etc. where Congress party is ruling, there is huge dissent within, things are unmanageable now. 

All these being the case, the ruling party which wanted to obliterate the Congress, doesn’t need to do much, because the party is on a self destructive course by itself. All BJP did was to choke the money sources of Congress. Today, nobody needs to destroy the congress party, it is destroying by itself. That is good for the BJP as it could go about with the  ‘Hindutva’ agenda while enjoying absolute majority, without even having an opposition leader in Loksabha. 

At this rate, in the next union election, the ruling party can take out one D (Democracy) out of its 3D slogan and make it simply, 2D (demography & demand) !