The Congress spokesman Manish Tewari, notoriously combative, arrogant and self-righteous, recently came out with an utterly thoughtless and despicable charge against the Anna Hazare team which is currently engaged with some UPA Ministers to jointly draft a Lokpal bill for consideration of the nation and the Parliament. He accused them of the "tyranny of the unelected and the unelectable"! In other words, the ruling Congress party was telling the representatives of the people's anti-corruption movement that since you were not elected, you have no right to "dictate" to those who are elected. If the election was the sole criterion for taking up a public cause, why the UPA govt. accepeted Anna Hazare's demand for a strong Lokpal bill in the first place, after tremendous nation-wide support to his indefinite fast in this regard? Why did it listen to the voice of "the unelected"? Does it not show dupilicity and dishonesty? And why Mrs Sonia Gandhi has unleashed her barking dogs to attack Anna and his associates and their mythical backers-the RSS? If she and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were sincere and serious about tackling corruption, why did they not use this golden opportunity to work with the non-political group of people to draft a credible and strong anti-corruption measure for the approval of the Parliament?
All democratic societies have room for public pressure groups to influence and offer helpful inputs to elected politicians and parliamentarians in the interest of the people at large. Wisdom and public-spiritedness is not the monopoly of the elected. Otherwise, the people like Gandhiji, Vinobha Bhave and Jaya Prakash Narain would have been fringe players and not widely popular, respected, influential leaders. The JP movement succeeded in toppling the Indira Gandhi authoritarianism. Was he elected?
Unfortunately, under our present electoral system, polluted by money and muscle power as well as casteism, criminals and history-sheeters get elected in large numbers. How can one forget the manner in which the previous Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav catapulted his illiterate wife from the kitchen to the Chief Minister's chair as he was jailed under a corruption charge? Also, we have a classic case of "a poor Dalit ki beti"(daughter of a poor scheduled caste) becoming a crorepati(multi-millionaire) in a decade, by manipulating Dalit and minority vote in her favour to capture the office of Chief Minister. It is quite easy for powerful politicians to get their children, daughters-in-law and sons-in-law, elected to legislatures. Thus, what is so sacred and holy about elections? If the elections are regarded as supremely important, why the Congress party has allowed an unelected bureaucrat-turned-politician to occupy Prime Minister's office for two terms(ten years) without fighting an election? Dr Singh is not a member of the Lok Sabha, hence, he cannot hold the office of the Leader of the House, nor he can vote in the House. Having lost one Lok Sabha election earlier, he refuses to fight another Lok Sabha election; he has chosen the convenient and comfortable Rajya Sabha route to enter Parliament. Why is the party not insisting on his respecting the long established convention of the Prime Minister belonging to the Lok Sabha? All his predecesors-Jawaharlal /Nehru, Mrs Indira Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri, did so. Why one norm for Hazare's men and another for their PM?
All democratic societies have room for public pressure groups to influence and offer helpful inputs to elected politicians and parliamentarians in the interest of the people at large. Wisdom and public-spiritedness is not the monopoly of the elected. Otherwise, the people like Gandhiji, Vinobha Bhave and Jaya Prakash Narain would have been fringe players and not widely popular, respected, influential leaders. The JP movement succeeded in toppling the Indira Gandhi authoritarianism. Was he elected?
Unfortunately, under our present electoral system, polluted by money and muscle power as well as casteism, criminals and history-sheeters get elected in large numbers. How can one forget the manner in which the previous Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav catapulted his illiterate wife from the kitchen to the Chief Minister's chair as he was jailed under a corruption charge? Also, we have a classic case of "a poor Dalit ki beti"(daughter of a poor scheduled caste) becoming a crorepati(multi-millionaire) in a decade, by manipulating Dalit and minority vote in her favour to capture the office of Chief Minister. It is quite easy for powerful politicians to get their children, daughters-in-law and sons-in-law, elected to legislatures. Thus, what is so sacred and holy about elections? If the elections are regarded as supremely important, why the Congress party has allowed an unelected bureaucrat-turned-politician to occupy Prime Minister's office for two terms(ten years) without fighting an election? Dr Singh is not a member of the Lok Sabha, hence, he cannot hold the office of the Leader of the House, nor he can vote in the House. Having lost one Lok Sabha election earlier, he refuses to fight another Lok Sabha election; he has chosen the convenient and comfortable Rajya Sabha route to enter Parliament. Why is the party not insisting on his respecting the long established convention of the Prime Minister belonging to the Lok Sabha? All his predecesors-Jawaharlal /Nehru, Mrs Indira Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri, did so. Why one norm for Hazare's men and another for their PM?
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