UPA in Power : Celebrations for What?

If no governance, rampant corruption and destroying well established institutions are a cause for celebrations, full mark to the Congress led government of the United Progressive Alliance. The Manmohan Singh led government that completed four years in office on May 22, 2013 in its second term and nine years since 2004. The government is happy to recount it’s so called achievements that are nothing but an eye wash. Let us first take Manmohan Singh as an economist Prime Minister of India.

Despite the claims of a robust growth oriented economy, the realities are:

1. Fiscal deficit touching double digit veering around 10% and above of the Gross Domestic Product or GDP.
2. Current Discount Deficit is running at 6% of the GDP
3. Massive loot of funds running into thousands of crores in the UPA flagship programme: Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. No action by the government to book the babus and the politicians indulging in the loot of public money.
4. The UPA Government destroyed the civil aviation sector in the name of privatization by allowing slush money of drug syndicate and under world operators in the private airlines. The result: The national carrier AIR INDIA is a sick unit and the air fares hitting the roof.

There are many more instances of the Indian economy being in bad shape.

Coming to politics, the Congress that leads the government has least regard for accountabily while in office. For the Congress two wrongs make a right. It’s counter attack on the main Opposition , the BJP is that the NDA Government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee was the first to free the spectrum to private operators on the 2G scam.

It attacked the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (a constitutional authority) for listing the corruption in high places running into lakhs of crores of rupees rather than taking prompt action against the guilty.

The Commonwealth Games was show cased in New Delhi at the staggering cost of public money. People responsible for the loot of public money are still enjoy the comforts of life. Air conditioners that cost in the market say Rs.25,000/- were hired for few months at the rate of Rs.1.5 lakh per month. From toilet papers to dustbins cost more than ten thousands. Today the man who headed the CWG is enjoying the fruits of the loot with the process of law moving at snail’s pace.

In the 2G spectrum case the government and the Prime Minister repeatedly denied any wrong doing or scam by the then Telcom Minister A Raja till the Supreme Court intervened. He was removed and subsequently arrested but there is no trace of the money that changed hands under the table.

The coal scam is still haunting the government. But the government has no regret whatsoever for allowing the scam to take place that runs again into several thousand crores of rupees under the very nose of our Prime Minister.

The way Prime Minister tried to defend and is still shielding former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and former Law Minister Ashwini Kumar speaks volumes of the contempt for democratic institutions.

You may not take bribe but don’t care or mind others taking bribe and or looting public money is, perhaps the only achievement of the UPA Government so far. With less than a year to go for general elections, the strong undercurrent of anger and disgust of the common man hardly affect the ruling class’ style of functioning. For they believe in the dictum: Make hey while the sun shines.

The UPA is  a Greek Tragedy. 

~ R.K.Sinha