Congress was totally clueless in reading the pulse of the electorate during Indian Lok Sabha 2019 elections. The Congress party's cluelessness was further magnified when it started holding talks with other political parties and planning for forming a Non-BJP coalition government even after several exit polls clearly predicted victory for BJP and decimation of Congress.
Let us analyze the issues which the Congress party raised while contesting the elections. The Congress party accused BJP of causing trouble by bringing Demonetization, hasty implementation of Goods & Services Tax (GST), growing unemployment and not addressing agrarian distress.
Demonetization of Rs.500 and Rs.1000 currency notes was done with the main intention of eliminating black money and weeding out fake currency. One has to admit that the implementation was not smooth, it was not well planned and thought out and the execution was far from perfect. But the common man did not complain at all and was willing to patiently wait for hours together in the queues to withdraw money from the ATM. Why so? Because the intention behind Demonetization was good. In fact, it united the entire nation. Everyone saw that the Prime Minister was taking a bold step for the good of the nation and everyone willingly and jubilantly took part and supported the experimentation.
In his address to the NDA parliamentary meeting on 25th May, the Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi said we might undertake several works and in the process not each one of them we might get it right. But the intention behind each one of them should never be wrong. The entire nation clearly saw that the intention behind the Demonetization was never wrong. Though it did not fully achieve the intended result it enabled the entire money to be returned to the banking system so that it could be tracked from now on, the large deposit holders are being tracked and questioned, usage of digital currency and digital transactions have picked up and definitely the first steps have been taken towards cashless economy.
Though implementation and adaptation of GST ran into some initial hiccups and took some time to start operating smoothly, it has started yielding positive results. If any problems still remain then they need to be identified and addressed. Detailed analysis of GST can be read in this Economic Times article and here. This article from Economic Times reports that the revenue collection from GST is exceeding 1 lakh crore rupees per month.
NDA government could definitely do better in reducing the unemployment rates. But it does not mean it has done very poorly. You can read in detail about the NDA government's job creation data in these articles of Economic Times, Business Standard and The Pioneer.
Several states have been hit by the agrarian crisis caused by the combination of drought, unfavorable climate, drying up of water sources, price crash due to bumper harvests, etc. BJP had to pay a heavy price for it by losing their governments in Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, and Rajasthan during December 2018 assembly elections. Anti-incumbency also contributed to the loss of BJP. But it is also interesting to note that Congress did not win those elections comprehensively. Except for Chattisgarh, Congress won by a razor-thin majority in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. But in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the electorate trusted NDA to tackle the agrarian crisis and solve it. In this latest scenario, it would be interesting to see whether the Congress will be able to hold on to their slender majority in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and the farce government they are running in Karnataka by forging an unholy alliance with JD(S) which is a highly communal party though they call themselves as Secular. Hope the new NDA government makes this agrarian problem as a high priority and addresses it.
Beyond raising these issues what else did Congress had to offer? Negative campaigning and sloganeering!! Rahul Gandhi accused Narendra Modi by the slogan "Chowkidar Chor Hain" (Gatekeeper is a Thief) and used it to the hilt. Poor Rahul did not know that some of the major strengths of Modi are his integrity, incorruptibility and his love for the nation. One should listen to the overwhelming response Modi gets and the electricity he generates amongst the crowd every time when he roars "Bharat Matha Ki Jai" and chants "Vande Mataram". Even the Providence showed its disapproval of the use of a negative slogan and personal attack of Modi by making Rahul Gandhi hastily attributing the slogan to the Supreme Court. Later Rahul Gandhi, the Congress President, in front of the whole nation had to eat a humble pie in utter humiliation after being forced to tender an "Unconditional Apology" to the Supreme Court.
Finally the Congress party from its side what is the main thing it offered to the electorate? Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY) scheme. Through this scheme, the Congress party intended to provide Rs.6,000 every month to 20% of the poorest families. This would have cost the exchequer Rs.3.6 lakh crore (US $52 billion) every year. How did Congress intend to generate that kind of money every year? No answer. Everybody in this world knows that there is no such thing as "Free Lunch". These articles in Economic Times explain that "NYAY scheme is neither fair nor feasible" and say "NYAY simple doesn't work".
Why parties such as Congress make outrageous promises such as NYAY scheme and later either renege on its promises or cause huge damage and loss to the nation by trying to uphold such promises?
Lofty and unfulfillable promises such as NYAY scheme are made because of their single most objective of looting after coming to power by hook or crook. Service to the people or interest of the state or nation is not at all their concern. For example, the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh and the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in Karnataka, both announced waiver of farmer loans. Here are the articles from News18 and Republic World reporting on the status of loan waiver by Madhya Pradesh government. These articles from NDTV and Times of India provide the reality check on the farmer loan waivers by the Karnataka government. This article says the reality of such schemes are "nothing but scams, full of lies and cruel joke to the farmers".
If the Karnataka government had implemented even a small portion of its farmer loan waiver scheme there is no way the JD(S) party would have lost in Mandya Lok Sabha constituency and that too after spending huge amount of money to the extent of Rs.150 crore as alleged by these articles from Deccan Herald, Deccan Chronicle and Indian Express. The constituency was won by an independent candidate, Sumalatha Ambareesh, widow of the late Kannada actor defeating Nikhil Kumaraswamy, son of the present Chief Minister H.D.Kumaraswamy and grandson of former Prime Minister H.D.Devegowda. To the credit of Kumaraswamy's and JD(S) party's exemplary behavior, they had fielded three more women as independent candidates and the names of all these women happened to be Sumalatha so that voters get confused in identifying the right Sumalatha. The three women, who were independents and completely unknown to the electorate managed together to garner about 20,000 votes amongst them. Please check the Mandya Election Results where all the candidates are listed along with the number of votes polled by each one of them. These parties can stoop to any level to come to power just to start looting from day one.
H.D.Kumaraswamy the younger son of Devegowda is currently the Chief Minister and H.D.Revanna, the elder son is currently the Minister for Public Works Department (PWD). In this election, JD(S) further exhibited its disgusting greed by fielding Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil Kumaraswamy from Mandya and Prajwal Revanna from Hassan, son of H.D.Revanna who is the elder son of H.D.Devegowda. As if this is not sufficient, Devegowda himself who is 86 years old contested from Tumkur constituency. Two people from the family are sitting MLAs and three more were aspiring to become MPs. The electorates unequivocally expressed their disapproval by making both Devegowda and Nikhil lose and Prajwal from Mandya is the only seat won by JD(S). It is pathetic to see that blinded by the lust for power and mired in greed, Devegowda forgets that he is expected to maintain a certain level of decency, dignity, and decorum being an octogenarian and after having served as a Chief Minister of the state and Prime Minister of the country.
The famous statement made in 1985 by none other than Rahul Gandhi's father Rajiv Gandhi corroborates that such loan waiver and freebie schemes like NYAY lead to scams. Rajiv Gandhi had said, "Only 16 paise out of every rupee meant for the welfare of the downtrodden reaches them". You can read more on that from these articles from Hindustan Times, Times of India and Rediff.
This article from News18 while discussing the book "Durbar" written by a renowned journalist, Tavleen Singh, highlights how parties such as Congress and its nefarious objectives to loot can damage the fabric of the nation, the extent of harm it can cause and rob the nation of its soul.
Let us analyze the issues which the Congress party raised while contesting the elections. The Congress party accused BJP of causing trouble by bringing Demonetization, hasty implementation of Goods & Services Tax (GST), growing unemployment and not addressing agrarian distress.
Demonetization of Rs.500 and Rs.1000 currency notes was done with the main intention of eliminating black money and weeding out fake currency. One has to admit that the implementation was not smooth, it was not well planned and thought out and the execution was far from perfect. But the common man did not complain at all and was willing to patiently wait for hours together in the queues to withdraw money from the ATM. Why so? Because the intention behind Demonetization was good. In fact, it united the entire nation. Everyone saw that the Prime Minister was taking a bold step for the good of the nation and everyone willingly and jubilantly took part and supported the experimentation.
In his address to the NDA parliamentary meeting on 25th May, the Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi said we might undertake several works and in the process not each one of them we might get it right. But the intention behind each one of them should never be wrong. The entire nation clearly saw that the intention behind the Demonetization was never wrong. Though it did not fully achieve the intended result it enabled the entire money to be returned to the banking system so that it could be tracked from now on, the large deposit holders are being tracked and questioned, usage of digital currency and digital transactions have picked up and definitely the first steps have been taken towards cashless economy.
Though implementation and adaptation of GST ran into some initial hiccups and took some time to start operating smoothly, it has started yielding positive results. If any problems still remain then they need to be identified and addressed. Detailed analysis of GST can be read in this Economic Times article and here. This article from Economic Times reports that the revenue collection from GST is exceeding 1 lakh crore rupees per month.
NDA government could definitely do better in reducing the unemployment rates. But it does not mean it has done very poorly. You can read in detail about the NDA government's job creation data in these articles of Economic Times, Business Standard and The Pioneer.
Several states have been hit by the agrarian crisis caused by the combination of drought, unfavorable climate, drying up of water sources, price crash due to bumper harvests, etc. BJP had to pay a heavy price for it by losing their governments in Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, and Rajasthan during December 2018 assembly elections. Anti-incumbency also contributed to the loss of BJP. But it is also interesting to note that Congress did not win those elections comprehensively. Except for Chattisgarh, Congress won by a razor-thin majority in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. But in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the electorate trusted NDA to tackle the agrarian crisis and solve it. In this latest scenario, it would be interesting to see whether the Congress will be able to hold on to their slender majority in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and the farce government they are running in Karnataka by forging an unholy alliance with JD(S) which is a highly communal party though they call themselves as Secular. Hope the new NDA government makes this agrarian problem as a high priority and addresses it.
Beyond raising these issues what else did Congress had to offer? Negative campaigning and sloganeering!! Rahul Gandhi accused Narendra Modi by the slogan "Chowkidar Chor Hain" (Gatekeeper is a Thief) and used it to the hilt. Poor Rahul did not know that some of the major strengths of Modi are his integrity, incorruptibility and his love for the nation. One should listen to the overwhelming response Modi gets and the electricity he generates amongst the crowd every time when he roars "Bharat Matha Ki Jai" and chants "Vande Mataram". Even the Providence showed its disapproval of the use of a negative slogan and personal attack of Modi by making Rahul Gandhi hastily attributing the slogan to the Supreme Court. Later Rahul Gandhi, the Congress President, in front of the whole nation had to eat a humble pie in utter humiliation after being forced to tender an "Unconditional Apology" to the Supreme Court.
Finally the Congress party from its side what is the main thing it offered to the electorate? Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY) scheme. Through this scheme, the Congress party intended to provide Rs.6,000 every month to 20% of the poorest families. This would have cost the exchequer Rs.3.6 lakh crore (US $52 billion) every year. How did Congress intend to generate that kind of money every year? No answer. Everybody in this world knows that there is no such thing as "Free Lunch". These articles in Economic Times explain that "NYAY scheme is neither fair nor feasible" and say "NYAY simple doesn't work".
Why parties such as Congress make outrageous promises such as NYAY scheme and later either renege on its promises or cause huge damage and loss to the nation by trying to uphold such promises?
Lofty and unfulfillable promises such as NYAY scheme are made because of their single most objective of looting after coming to power by hook or crook. Service to the people or interest of the state or nation is not at all their concern. For example, the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh and the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in Karnataka, both announced waiver of farmer loans. Here are the articles from News18 and Republic World reporting on the status of loan waiver by Madhya Pradesh government. These articles from NDTV and Times of India provide the reality check on the farmer loan waivers by the Karnataka government. This article says the reality of such schemes are "nothing but scams, full of lies and cruel joke to the farmers".
If the Karnataka government had implemented even a small portion of its farmer loan waiver scheme there is no way the JD(S) party would have lost in Mandya Lok Sabha constituency and that too after spending huge amount of money to the extent of Rs.150 crore as alleged by these articles from Deccan Herald, Deccan Chronicle and Indian Express. The constituency was won by an independent candidate, Sumalatha Ambareesh, widow of the late Kannada actor defeating Nikhil Kumaraswamy, son of the present Chief Minister H.D.Kumaraswamy and grandson of former Prime Minister H.D.Devegowda. To the credit of Kumaraswamy's and JD(S) party's exemplary behavior, they had fielded three more women as independent candidates and the names of all these women happened to be Sumalatha so that voters get confused in identifying the right Sumalatha. The three women, who were independents and completely unknown to the electorate managed together to garner about 20,000 votes amongst them. Please check the Mandya Election Results where all the candidates are listed along with the number of votes polled by each one of them. These parties can stoop to any level to come to power just to start looting from day one.
H.D.Kumaraswamy the younger son of Devegowda is currently the Chief Minister and H.D.Revanna, the elder son is currently the Minister for Public Works Department (PWD). In this election, JD(S) further exhibited its disgusting greed by fielding Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil Kumaraswamy from Mandya and Prajwal Revanna from Hassan, son of H.D.Revanna who is the elder son of H.D.Devegowda. As if this is not sufficient, Devegowda himself who is 86 years old contested from Tumkur constituency. Two people from the family are sitting MLAs and three more were aspiring to become MPs. The electorates unequivocally expressed their disapproval by making both Devegowda and Nikhil lose and Prajwal from Mandya is the only seat won by JD(S). It is pathetic to see that blinded by the lust for power and mired in greed, Devegowda forgets that he is expected to maintain a certain level of decency, dignity, and decorum being an octogenarian and after having served as a Chief Minister of the state and Prime Minister of the country.
The famous statement made in 1985 by none other than Rahul Gandhi's father Rajiv Gandhi corroborates that such loan waiver and freebie schemes like NYAY lead to scams. Rajiv Gandhi had said, "Only 16 paise out of every rupee meant for the welfare of the downtrodden reaches them". You can read more on that from these articles from Hindustan Times, Times of India and Rediff.
This article from News18 while discussing the book "Durbar" written by a renowned journalist, Tavleen Singh, highlights how parties such as Congress and its nefarious objectives to loot can damage the fabric of the nation, the extent of harm it can cause and rob the nation of its soul.
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