Aged Politicians Holds Their Forts
Posted : May 22, 2006 at 10:57 pm [IST]
Recent polls’ brought some unique revelations. Old men of all political parties are keeping themselves strong and effective to reign. Temptation and greed are still at high.
VS Achuthanandan of CPM becomes the chief minister of the most developed state of Kerala for the first time at his age of 83 years. CPM Politburo couldn’t bypass him in favour of his younger opponent, P. Vijayan, because of his huge mass base even today.
Jyoti Basu in his late 90s still matters in West Bengal. Buddha might have been key to win election. Hs investment friendly image has already made him an icon of reform and darling of industry- of both manufacturing as well as IT sector. Tatas celebrated his installation as CM with an announcement of locating its Rs 1-lakh-car plant in West Bengal. But Buddha couldn’t manage to remove some old comrades from his ministry, particularly, the unscrupulous (to some) Subhash Chakroborty, because of Jyoti Basu. So a report captioned ‘Buddha Gets Basu Team’.
And Mthuvel Karunanidhi, at 83 starts his fifth term as Chief minister of Tamil Nadu with a bang of offerings as promised during campaign: rice for the poor at Rs 2 per kg, waiver of loans for the cooperative sector, and an extra egg in the midday meal-scheme for school children. Stalin, the dynasty’s heir, though a cabinet minister, will have to wait for another 5 years, if Karunanidhi survives.
But it is not only here. VP Singh, the former Prime Minister for a short-term and Arjun Singh, the present HRD Minister, hardly even think for a moment that they have aged and must be out of the mean politics.
V.P. Singh living regularly on state-financed dialysis doesn’t wish to quit politics. He is now patron of Jan Morcha with film star-MP-cum-SP-rebel Raj Babbar as its public face. This Jan Morcha has come up only to embarrass Mulayam Singh Yadav by chipping away some votes in the UP polls slated for February 2007. As reported, V.P. Singh says, “A purely political front, the Jan Morcha will raise issues of that section which has remained unattended. Then there will be focus on law and order and problems of farmers, weavers and youth.” And further what can be his next move to be in limelight? He says,” The state government is snatching away farmers’ land in a big way. See what is happening in the Dadri power project, high-tech cities project, the Lucknow- Kanpur corridor.” Noida thus will have to wait for some more years to get uninterrupted power. Is there no one left to carry on these movements if these are pro-poor? Being a poet and painter, why can’t he enjoy life with those activities and die in piece?
Arjun Singh has gone old and sick, and so is his worth. Why should he keep on troubling his own Prime Minister? Why should he talk fowl of Knowledge Commission? Was his latest Mandal-II for OBC so essential? When the whole country is basking in the economy boom, he has come up with his brilliant (to him?) idea that has already divided the young men and women of the whole nation.
And the list does end there. You look to the old men of BJP- Bajpaiji and then Advani. While Bajpaiji keeps on creating confusion sometimes by calling someone a Laxman and sometimes something else, Mr. Advani can’t conceal his aspiration to become the Prime Minister. They hardly bother about the younger generation.
While there is no way to ensure politicians relinquish power, we need mechanisms to ensure they leave.
I sometimes wonder why the younger generation allows these obsolete junks to create nuisances. They must be content with whatever they have achieved and must leave for the younger leaders to carry on.
- Indra
Category: Indian politics |
Leave a Comment