On May 22, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) completes one year of its second term in office, and it would be fair to say that the hype and hoopla about the Congress getting 200 seats and forming a government on its own without Left support has well nigh dissipated and disappeared.
Instead, there are questions marks, big question marks, over several of the policies ushered in by the government, be it the women’s reservation bill or the nuclear liability bill, Over the Telegana decision taken in a hurry, the approach to Maoists, and the charges of wholesale and retail corruption.
In the absence of any kind of opposition from the Left or the Right, Congressmen (from Digvijay Singh to Jairam Ramesh, from Mani Shankar Aiyar to Shashi Tharoor) have been providing all the pinpricks, even as allies like the DMK and NCP have been happily riding merry on the spectrum scam or the IPL.
Question: How has UPA-II fared compared with UPA-I? On current evidence, does Manmohan Singh seem like he will last out the full term? Will Sonia Gandhi‘s return to the helm of the national advisory council restore a sense of balance? Is the BJP poised to exploit the situation?
Tags: Churumuri, Congress, Digvijay Singh, Jairam Ramesh, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Sans Serif, Shashi Tharoor, UPA
17 May 2010 at 7:09 pm
UPA-II has been a disappointment so far.
Nothing of substance in past one year. They promised to revamp the direct tax system, but the news suggests it’ll be more of the same old system!
HRD/Education minister held out promise of an overhaul, but nothing substantial has happened yet.
Minister of Highways spoke of mega highway plans, but nothing concrete seems to have materialized yet. Atleast not in the grand scales that he spoke of.
On the other hand, we have had a lot of controversies. Without the Communist bugbear a lot more was expected of UPA-II. Nothing substantial is being done.. yet…
18 May 2010 at 4:12 am
UPA-II is giving India one of our history’s worst administrations:
1. Price rise — very sobering, very back-breaking
2. Spectrum scam — biggest and worst scam of the decade
3. Energy crisis — power deficits in almost every state; failure to operationalize the Indo-U.S. civil nuclear agreement; totally unplanned, unregulated and inefficient energy market
4. Environmental disaster — unmitigated deforestation, illegal and unethical mining, threat to various ecosystems, rising coastal and marine pollution, threat to endangered species, worsening air/water quality, inadequate solid waste (particularly waste plastic) treatment, etc.
For the above four reasons alone (in addition to hundreds of others, such as failure on judicial and administrative reforms, and failure to attract foreign investment/tourism), UPA-II will go down in India’s history as an utterly defunct government.
19 May 2010 at 11:00 am
None of the issues raised by the media or churumuri matter to the voting public of India.
1. Prise rise has been an issue for 100s of years. Even in last May, when teh country went to general elections, there was a massive inflation. That did not stop people from Voting for UPA.
2. Indian economy did quite well inspite of recession around the world. And India, continue to hold its own even today.
3. Spectrum scam may be a scam of huge proporptions. The voting public does not care about it. how does it affect their lives anyways?
4. Shashi tharoor scam, Jairam ramesh’s utterances, Digvijay’s remarks, all these don’t matter, because more than 99% of India is not affected by these stray remarks. It is an issue blown out of proportion by the media.
5. Chattisgarh terror attacks by Naxals reflects on the poor adminstrative skills of the BJP govt there. However, central govt too cannot escape the blame.
On the other hand UPA 2 has taken revolutionary steps in :
1) RTE act. (free ecuation for children, foreign universities in India, etc)
2)giving unique identity card to every citizen
3 ensuring speedy justice in Kasab’s case
4) Up to 35 kilos of rice/wheat….given to the poor.
5) Expanding NREGA
6) Woman’s reservation bill on its way to becoming a law.
7)
20 May 2010 at 12:17 pm
Simple,
You don’t disappoint at all. As usual you hit all the high notes while singing UPA achievements.
20 May 2010 at 4:13 pm
The administration of UPA-2 has been a disappointment so far.
I wouldn’t compare it to UPA-1 though. Not many had any great expectations from UPA-1. Hence people lapped up whatever little it could achieve. Given the Left crutch, the survival of the Govt. itself was seen as a great feat!
Given that background, people (read middle-class, urban, English speaking) had huge expectations from UPA-2 once it was known that Left was left behind and the Govt. was seen to be fairly independent and more secure. So the disappointment has been that much more acute.
But I wouldn’t put all blame squarely at the doorstep of UPA-2. This last year has seen some very strange bed making – weird sets of bed-fellows have frolicked on various occasions. Added to that, some 35% of session time of parliament has been lost due to various ’causes’ which egged on different opposition parties to jump into the ‘well’.
This website is a pretty neat source of how our parliament functions/functioned.
http://www.prsindia.org/
UPA-2 surely has to improve and get the focus back on governance. There is no doubt about it. But the opposition too should play little more constructive role and look for bi-partisan approach rather than opposing every single move of the Govt.