Competitive politics is not good for our system because in the long run it can derail the government’s functioning and make decision making hostage to petty politics such as the one we are now witnessing courtesy the drama orchestrated by the Trinamool Congress (TC) over the long overdue fare hike as announced in the Railway Budget by Union Minister Dinesh Trivedi. Quite amusing as it may sound, one senior member of the TC argued that the hike in railway passenger fare goes against the ‘very DNA’ of the party and therefore not only should the hike be rolled back but the concern TC Minister must quit the government as he had failed to uphold the party’s interest. Quite sensibly, Mr Trivedi gave the argument that the hike was necessary otherwise where the money would come from for railway safety and betterment of facilities. While party ideology, manifesto or interest is not being discounted, yet it is time for political parties to understand the interest of the country. Coalition partners like the Trinamool or the DMK may want to have everything for Bengal or Tamil Nadu but what happens to national interest? Mr Trivedi was a member of the ‘Union’ government not of West Bengal and as Railway Minister he is supposed to represent the entire country because the Railways is national property not something confined to the Trinamool party interest alone. So you see it’s the larger concern for public welfare, which should be factored in while taking important policy decision. People want safety, better facilities etc while using the Indian Railways. But this will require taking something from people’s pocket (user charges) to make this happen.
Narrow political gains should not be allowed to hamper implementation of policies. As rightly mentioned by Dinesh Trivedi, who has had to resign as the Union Railway Minister, there is too much politics in India. And this is precisely the problem we are highlighting here. Take the case of vote bank politics. Politicians are known to pander to different interests just to ensure that they can draw support of voters. In India’s political culture, there is a lot of pandering happening all the time. This is not surprising because otherwise our politicians risk losing their existing support or vote bank. Take the case of controversial writer Salman Rushdie who is on a visit to India for a public event. Interestingly the politicians who were lined up to attend the event such as Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, as well as Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan, all stayed away citing “other engagements”. It will be suicidal for these politicians to be seen together with Salman Rushdie as they have to pander to the Muslim vote bank. Similarly the recent debate on the ENPO issue witnessed the eastern Naga legislators sticking to the demand for Frontier Nagaland. So you see if we want to only have our own way to do things, our economic plans or political initiatives will be crippled. It’s time to put arrogance and self ambition aside. Our politicians need to start opening their minds and look at the bigger picture.
