Setting your own house on fire

-

Human beings are funny creatures. The concept of the larger purpose of life, constant hustles and setting up new goals, all can be seen as ways to keep the human mind occupied and busy. But that is not it, human mind also needs entertainment, and when one does not get the same, they start getting impatient. One can only imagine the extent to which a person can go for the sake of entertainment and adventure. After all, heights of boredom must have compelled people to try out absurdities like the cinnamon challenge and choking game. 

However, even after listening to tons of such stories people voluntarily becoming guinea pigs, I doubt if someone has ever set their own house on fire when everything in their lives is turning out to be perfect. But not anymore, as to fill that one spot Punjab Congress has worked day and night to ensure that their return does not seem evident. If you get to witness a close fight in the next Punjab assembly polls, thank Congress for the fun.


In the last few weeks Congress, especially the high command and Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee have taken some decisions that only intellectuals can take. It takes some geniuses’ to organise a rebellion against your own chief minister months before the elections. 


Courtesy: TOI

The unceremonious exit of Captain Amarinder Singh as Chief Minister of the Punjab is a new low for the self-defeating Congress. It is inexplicable that a party with an ever-changing national footprint is determined to squander its meagre earnings in the United States. The mismanagement of the situation by the high command has destabilized the state government and is wreaking havoc in Punjab, which will go to the polls in just five months.


The serious failure to deal with the crisis and take timely corrective action has seriously undermined the party's electoral prospects, and this too at a time when the main opposition parties - the Shiromani Akali Dal and Aam Aadmi parties - are desperately trying to reorganize and regain the confidence of the electorate. 


The party created a crawl space two months ago when it elevated Navjot Singh Sidhu to head the PPCC, overturning Captain Amarinder's objections. Giving Sidhu carte blanche to take the turns at  CM was an invitation to disaster. The weak and unconvincing attempts to correct a fix between Captain Amarinder and Sidhu only made matters worse. 


Courtesy: PTI


The apathetic approach of the high command can be measured by the fact that it set up the  Punjab Election Manifesto Implementation Committee until January 2020, almost three years after Captain Amarinder led the party. to a landslide victory in 2017. If mismanagement and breaking ballot promises were the biggest problems, the course correction should have been done much earlier, not at the eleventh hour when the group needed all hands on deck.


Now it would be naïve for Congress to view Punjab as a handy fruit. The party will have to return to the drawing board to prepare for the 2022 elections. Heads of state have already spent too much time and energy on political intrigue and superiority. With the credibility of Congress in tatters, it will be a tall order for the big old party to maintain power.
Location: New Delhi, Delhi, India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tyrant’s playbook at work: Creation of a police state

-
Image
Humans, if they believe that they are under threat, will prefer giving up their liberties and freedoms in the hands of that one person who rose and said ‘I alone can fix it. Potential dictators understand this fact that when people are threatened, they look for strong authoritarian leadership and support a strongman. But before taking complete control of their state, they need to channel the anger, frustration and fear of the people in one direction that suits them. Generally, authoritarian leaders are not good when it comes to building a vibrant economy. A regime of corruption and a few yes men surrounding that one tyrant cannot sustain without sharing the prosperity of the country among the top brass. Such economic hardships make the citizens disenchanted and there is a fear that the strongman might lose his support base. Though an angry crowd is what a tyrant needs, the angry crowd can turn against you if not handled well. After all, even they deserve someone to blame for all the ha
Read more

Putin’s aggression has lessons for Indian thinkers

-
Image
  As Russian personnel and tanks marched into Ukraine on February 24, the world order was not only shaken but devastated. Kremlin’s steps have dissembled what the west called Pax Americana. Laying the foundation of a new era that, apparently, will be led and established by strongmen vouching for ‘traditionalism’ and hard power, in many ways, taking us back to the pre World War II era. The unravelling of events in Europe is a reality check reminding us that we live in the real world with dynamic situations in which geopolitics has come to assert itself. The protection that was guaranteed by globalization and alliance building might not be able to afford security for us. With the dawn of the multipolar order and the rise of China, the hegemony of the United States is coming to an end. This opens the door for other powers to create their own sphere of influence and exercise restraint against smaller countries. As the geopolitical order is churning, we will look at the path which took us h
Read more

A judgement worth celebrating delivered at the wrong time

-
Image
  India has been high on tensions among various communities for decades. Millennials in the country must have witnessed communal riots and religious extremism of kinds that might seem implausible for a country otherwise known for its unity in diversity. But as it is a saying in the film industry, the show must go on, as entertainment is a must for the industry. Appallingly, it is not very different in politics. The recent spectacle presented in the state of Karnataka is nothing but politics of hate being presented with one novel masala. As outrageous as this juxtaposition between the ongoing row and entertainment might seem to many people out there, the fact is that religious fanaticism and hatred are entering innocent classrooms in Karnataka. Call me biassed, but the idea of religiously charged teenagers sounds much more outrageous to me than mere rhetoric.  It’s patriarchs vs patriarchs The ongoing Hijab row, as it is being called by the media, is cluttered in itself. General educate
Read more