Upswing in Cong’s fortunes

The people of Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh have brought back the Congress Party to power by giving their mandate to it for third and second consecutive term respectively. After its victory in the Lok Sabha elections this year, Congress is going from strength to strength, while the opposition Bhartiya Janata Party is getting weaker and weaker because of its leadership crisis. The assembly elections in three states, though in Haryana Congress is five short of simple majority in the house of 90, show that there is great disillusionment among the people with main opposition party BJP, while it is necessary for the opposition to be formidable to work as check and balance and to keep the ruling entity always on toes. This is the third consecutive term that the people have given their mandate to the Congress party in the important state like Maharashtra without any remarkable achievement recorded by it in the last ten years. It clearly shows that the oposition parties are divided the advantage of which is availed by the Congress Party. Haryana is famous for ‘Aya Ram, Gaya Ram’ that Chief Minister Bhupendra Singh Hooda to apply this time with the independents to support him to form the government. And, Constitutionally also, Governor is bound to invite the Congress because of the largest number of legislatures. It is for the first time after 1966 in Haryana that the Congress government is formed for the second consecutive term. The victory of the Congress Party is not because it is has done some exemplary works for the people but because of the absence of formidable opposition . But one thing that goes in favour of the Congress party is that it is unflingchingly committed to its stated policy of secularism and pluralistic socieity and always makes policy and programme with an eye on the interest of the poor people of the country. The party does not believe in casteism and for the sake of votes on castelines it does not adopt any principle that causes cracks in the Indian socieity. Though the entire Maharashtra, including the cosmopolitan city of Mumbai which also happens to be the commercial capital of country, has brought the Congress party in the hope of delivering on promises honestly this time, making Mumbai in line of Shanghai as promised by none other than the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh himself remains a promise to this day. The development of state has been dismal and there has not been seen any improvement on halting starvation deaths,power sector and rural development front. By giving massive mandate to the Congress party by the people of Arunachal Pradesh, they have shown that the state is the integral part of India and it will remain so. In recent days, China has caste its hostile eyes on Arunachal Pradesh in North-Eastern region to which India has given the befitting reply diplomatically. Now the responsibility on the Congress party has increased and it would have to pursue development-oriented programm and policy more vigorously. Otherwise, it would also have to face people’s wrath in the next elections.