| Congress in the dock |
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| Now that Manmohan Singh is facing the music from the Supreme Court with the stinging indictment of the government's role in the spectrum scam. But it is the Congress which will suffer the most at the hustings in Uttar Pradesh and Goa. As the verdict of the voters of Uttarkhand, Pujab and Manipur was sealed in the ballot boxes, the party might have heaved a sigh of relief. Otherwise, the impact would have been much higher.Since Uttar Pradesh is the deciding factor in the national politics, the Congress can still keep its fingers crossed. The other factor is party's heir-apparent Rahul Gandhi. He has invested too much of his efforts on accomplishing success in the state. If the Congress falters, it cannot but undermine Rahul's chances of rising further up in the political ladder. The party has not spared any effort to wean away the Most Backward Castes (MBCs) - Koeris, Lohars, Nishads, Mallahs and so on - from the Yadav-dominated Other Backward Castes (OBCs) to undercut Mulayam Singh Yadav, and the ati-Dalits (where 'ati' stands for extreme) like Passis, Koris, Doms and others from the Jatav or Chamar-dominated Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of Chief Minister Mayawati. Since the Congress, especially Rahul, is stressing more on corruption than caste in this elections, the Supreme Court's verdict cannot but deflate the party's image to a large extent. It isn't only that the allocation of a precious natural resource was 'stage-managed', as the court has said, but the prime minister and the finance minister acted apparently like helpless spectators as their 'rogue cabinet colleague' ran amok. The BSP will be the most pleased with the verdict because the judgment will take some of the heat of its own follies. The follies are Mayawati's sacking of 21 of her ministers and spending of millions of rupees on the construction of her own statues and of her party's election symbol, the elephant. Of the others, the Samajwadi Party will gloat in silence because the embarrassment of a prospective ally with whom it can form a government will place it in a stronger position. Everything is said and done even if Manmohan Singh has been personally 'exonerated', as Subramanian Swamy has noted, the electoral impact of the disclosure that he held the wheels of the government with a limp hand cannot but hurt the Congress. |
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