The recent results of Hisar by - elections have raised a plethora of pertinent, pestering questions. While the Opposition is elated more at Congress’ failure than its own success, the civil society’s stakeholders are busy composing paeans on vindication of their anti corruption stance, which eventually turned out to be an anti Congress one.
Amidst the bulging trajectory of reigning competitive moral uprightness, Congress has come with a candid confession; they never believed they could win Hisar, so they haven’t lost it in real terms either. If puerile smugness and obsessive obduration ever desired personification, this was it. Contributing to the clamor was the Prime Minister himself. Usually reticent, reclusive and circumspect, Dr. Singh asserted from the IBSA summit, where he was representing the nation then, that the mandate must not be viewed as a referendum against Congress. Pearls of worldly wisdom or prosaic political symbolism? The jury is out. Perhaps the coming months would solve the conundrum, considering that five more states, including the strategically vital Hindi heartland, Uttar Pradesh go to Assembly polls next year.
Most certainly, the Congress core committee would have discussed, in all its glorious graphic details, the causes of this ignominy. Perhaps its only prudent to dwell on its effects too. What if the anti Congress anti corruption spills over to the States waiting for elections, and if it does as a trickle down effect, would the PM’s remark still hold good? For a government stuck neck deep in corruption quagmire and ensuing political slugfest, wouldn’t the precariously phlegmatic vision then be proved perilously myopic? In its face saving bid, isn’t the Congress making desperate self effacing attempts instead? Ever since Anna Hazare’s twin fasts awakened the candle wielding middle class, Congress through its eloquent spokespersons has repeatedly pressed the self destruction button. Sandwiched between Hazare’s fasts, ruling dispensation’s manhandling of a certain cross dressed Baba Ramdev also came under heavy fire from various civil society and human rights groups. Considering the mass hysteria these misadventures fostered, Hisar was pre –imminent, and if it sets a precedent, we might as well witness a change of guard at the Centre.
Congress, in current context appears willfully engaged in mud slinging maneuvers, subsequently giving credence to the anti corruption anti establishment raucous rancor being passionately pitched by its biggest bugbear of late, Messer’s Anna Hazare and Co., and therein lies its funny faux pas. Having chosen to be ridiculously reactive instead of pragmatically proactive, Congress party has in past quite nonchalantly, frittered away its vantage position. Hence Hissar.
The lessons to be learnt from this fiasco are many. Smugness, for starters is a strict no entry zone. Acceptance and acknowledgement of ideas, ideologies and failures with stoic equanimity needs to be incorporated as well. They sat characters are built in the most arduous of times. If Congress ever needed an opportunity to underscore the steel in its spine, such a time has announced its arrival. The calculus of success and failure aside, history, as is its wont, throws up an interesting trivia; Mr. Jaiprakash, the losing Congress candidate in Hisar is not the eternal loser after all. He had thrice won the same seat, his last victory coming in 2004. So for Congress to suggest that Hisar has never been their stronghold and hence its loss is essentially of academic relevance is a symptom of its self composed and imposed selective amnesia. It amounts to another dubious doublespeak, given their blue blood scion’s famous road trips to UP, a state that hasn’t had a Congress government for well over a decade. Does that translate into the fact that UP too is a loss cause for Congress, and if it is, what do the numerous covert and overt attempts to placate the region speak of? Embellished with an army of celebrated cerebral powerhouses, any vague verbatim emanating from Congress backyard is bound to attract social censure.
Lastly, and they need to concede this, corruption at Centre is indeed a real issue. Its all too well to ride a moral high ground and accuse Ms. Mayawati of misappropriation of MGNREGA funds (no matter how credible the charges turn out to be), however it does make the party incumbent to act on its own Chief Ministers, most notably in New Delhi and Goa.
For a government whose mid- term report card can be euphemistically described as chequered, the Hisar case study assumes greater relevance. Will the Congress learn and unlearn its lessons and discuss ideas and not individuals, will it ever cease to be the victim of its own vituperative, vindictive verbose and attempt instead to satiate the imploding poignant political quandaries, only time will tell. Until that happens, may the better sense prevail.
