So when will Pappu and Sonia Gandhi quit Congress?

[chewy]

Absolute humiliation in 2014.

 

And now in UP Elections, from 28 (12%) in 2012 to 7 seats (6.2%) from 105 contested seats

They have become insignificant at national level and now irrelevant in their own regional domain.

 

People rejecting them everywhere

 

 

[gattaca]

Pappu is the best thing happened to Indian politics. Why would you want him to quit ?

[jalebi_bhai]

Rahul Gandhi can stay. BJP agent.

[BeautifulGame]

Unfortunately the Indira family never have let a leader of spine grow in their party.

 

So can't see it happening.

[Texan]

Congress is in a strange quandary:

 

Without Gandhis, there is no Congress. Every Tom, Dick and Harry within Congress will aspire to be the top leader and the party will disintegrate even further. Remember that Congress, unlike BJP, does not have any intrinsic ideology any longer. So, there is nothing apart from loyalty to Gandhi family that ties all the Congress leaders together.

 

With Rahul Gandhi at the helm, there is low (if any) chance of recovery as every time they are in direct conflict with the BJP, they are likely to get decimated by the BJP. The Gandhi family is no longer producing mass leaders and have to rely on local leaders (like Amarinder in Punjab) to do all the heavy lifting, but they won't even empower the local leaders.

 

As an Indian, this is a good situation I feel. Congress should have had a big opponent early in our independent history. It took more than 30 years for a Janata Party to emerge, that too was a failed experiment because of the wide and conflicting interests of all the constituents that made up that party (more of a coalition than an actual homogenous party). Finally, with the BJP arriving, India has now a party with a common ideology, that respects and promotes democratic principles as against dynastic policies (at least for the top leaders) that is truly defining the future of India. Kudos to leaders like Vajpayee who built the party from ground up and now Modi to continue the legacy.

[velu]

10 hours ago, chewy said:

Absolute humiliation in 2014.

 

And now in UP Elections, from 28 (12%) in 2012 to 7 seats (6.2%) from 105 contested seats

They have become insignificant at national level and now irrelevant in their own regional domain.

 

People rejecting them everywhere

 

 

let him stay ;-)

guess congress was planning to project priyanka as a behind the scene player incase they did well , but got klpd

[Adi_91]

With such great display of leadership, he should never go.

 

 

[Muloghonto]

6 hours ago, Texan said:

Congress is in a strange quandary:

 

Without Gandhis, there is no Congress. Every Tom, Dick and Harry within Congress will aspire to be the top leader and the party will disintegrate even further. Remember that Congress, unlike BJP, does not have any intrinsic ideology any longer. So, there is nothing apart from loyalty to Gandhi family that ties all the Congress leaders together.

 

With Rahul Gandhi at the helm, there is low (if any) chance of recovery as every time they are in direct conflict with the BJP, they are likely to get decimated by the BJP. The Gandhi family is no longer producing mass leaders and have to rely on local leaders (like Amarinder in Punjab) to do all the heavy lifting, but they won't even empower the local leaders.

 

As an Indian, this is a good situation I feel. Congress should have had a big opponent early in our independent history. It took more than 30 years for a Janata Party to emerge, that too was a failed experiment because of the wide and conflicting interests of all the constituents that made up that party (more of a coalition than an actual homogenous party). Finally, with the BJP arriving, India has now a party with a common ideology, that respects and promotes democratic principles as against dynastic policies (at least for the top leaders) that is truly defining the future of India. Kudos to leaders like Vajpayee who built the party from ground up and now Modi to continue the legacy.

The main problem with the congress wasn't Nehru or Indira or the Gandhi family, it was the fact that they were uncontested in power from early on and it bred the mentality of 'we can do whatever we want and people will accept it'. Without a strong multi-party system, this will happen to the BJP as well, the only difference would be, BJP is not going to have a dynasty in its midst. But it will still go down the road of 'do whatever the eff we want, coz who is gonna stop us ?' mentality.
So we need effective India-wide opposition party to the BJP. Congress, as you said, don't have an ideology. The left parties are ultra-left, where they have ideology but are too much of a fringe presence to become a credible opposition to the BJP.

So perhaps what Indian politics need, is a hybridization of the Congress-CPM parties, similar to the NDP or social democrats in UK who will represent the left spectrum to balance the right-wing spectrum represented by the BJP.

 

[BeautifulGame]

The main problem with the congress wasn't Nehru or Indira or the Gandhi family, it was the fact that they were uncontested in power from early on and it bred the mentality of 'we can do whatever we want and people will accept it'. Without a strong multi-party system, this will happen to the BJP as well, the only difference would be, BJP is not going to have a dynasty in its midst. But it will still go down the road of 'do whatever the eff we want, coz who is gonna stop us ?' mentality.

So we need effective India-wide opposition party to the BJP. Congress, as you said, don't have an ideology. The left parties are ultra-left, where they have ideology but are too much of a fringe presence to become a credible opposition to the BJP.

So perhaps what Indian politics need, is a hybridization of the Congress-CPM parties, similar to the NDP or social democrats in UK who will represent the left spectrum to balance the right-wing spectrum represented by the BJP.

 

 

That is not accurate though.Indira had plenty of challenges within the party and she has to even split Congress into a new party .She didn't even get the original Congress symbol.

 

But people picked Indira over Congress which has led to this messed up situation where there is zero internal democracy and one family rule.

[Muloghonto]

5 minutes ago, BeautifulGame said:

 

That is not accurate though.Indira had plenty of challenges within the party and she has to even split Congress into a new party .She didn't even get the original Congress symbol.

 

But people picked Indira over Congress which has led to this messed up situation where there is zero internal democracy and one family rule.

Yes, but it doesnt change the fact that the attitudes of congress and its big-wigs were formed in the era before Indira, where there was no contesting congress. Indira, Nehru, etc. are product of an uncontested system, not creators of it. And BJP runs the risk of becoming the same phenomena as the congress, if it doesnt have a credible opposition.

 

[gattaca]

1 hour ago, Muloghonto said:

Yes, but it doesnt change the fact that the attitudes of congress and its big-wigs were formed in the era before Indira, where there was no contesting congress. Indira, Nehru, etc. are product of an uncontested system, not creators of it. And BJP runs the risk of becoming the same phenomena as the congress, if it doesnt have a credible opposition.

 

In India it will always be uncontested system. Their is no term limit on a particular person for pm true for cm as well. So if you have a popular leader he will be uncontested until he is too old or passes away.

[Gollum]

It was Indira Gandhi who systematically destroyed all state leaders of Congress. If Congress is a joke today thank her. 

[Muloghonto]

31 minutes ago, gattaca said:

In India it will always be uncontested system. Their is no term limit on a particular person for pm true for cm as well. So if you have a popular leader he will be uncontested until he is too old or passes away.

Thats not what i mean- India, UK, Canada- we all have the parliamentarian system. However, UK, Canada- these countries have strong opposition parties to keep each other honest & in check- no party gets to be the uncontested party that can think it can do whatever it wants to do.

That is India's problem and that has to change.

 

[Texan]

1 hour ago, Muloghonto said:

Yes, but it doesnt change the fact that the attitudes of congress and its big-wigs were formed in the era before Indira, where there was no contesting congress. Indira, Nehru, etc. are product of an uncontested system, not creators of it. And BJP runs the risk of becoming the same phenomena as the congress, if it doesnt have a credible opposition.

 

BJP is unlikely to become an uncontested "do what you want" kind of a party. And here's why. 

 

The big diffrence here is that the BJP is a democratically elected organization where leadership changes hands and it not bogged down by a dynasty. So, one leader or one thought process is not going to hold the entire party hostage for a long duration. Pretty sure that if Modi wins a second term in 2019, then 5 years later Modi is going to retire and make way for another emerging leader.

Second, there is always going to be this core group of voters that will always oppose BJP no matter how inclusive their agenda and their actions are. Some party is going to woo those voters and get their votes. Hence, very likely that there will always be a party or a group of parties that will be a national level opponent of the BJP. 

 

In the long run, I don't want BJP to become this giant that goes uncontested either. We need another party that can keep them in check. But at the moment, because of the way our Parliamentary decision making is structured and the fact that despite an overwhelming mandate, BJP is struggling to pass key legislation, I would like the NDA to get a majority in the Rajya Sabha as well so that we can truly benefit from the mandate provided to the BJP. 

 

[Texan]

8 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

Thats not what i mean- India, UK, Canada- we all have the parliamentarian system. However, UK, Canada- these countries have strong opposition parties to keep each other honest & in check- no party gets to be the uncontested party that can think it can do whatever it wants to do.

That is India's problem and that has to change.

 

India's problem has been regional parties - so many of them that cater to local aspirations yet play a role in national politics (often a regressive one). Ideally, we should have 2 national parties that keep each other in check but can also form a government when voted into power without having to rely on small local players with vested interests. 

[Muloghonto]

2 minutes ago, Texan said:

BJP is unlikely to become an uncontested "do what you want" kind of a party. And here's why. 

 

The big diffrence here is that the BJP is a democratically elected organization where leadership changes hands and it not bogged down by a dynasty. So, one leader or one thought process is not going to hold the entire party hostage for a long duration. Pretty sure that if Modi wins a second term in 2019, then 5 years later Modi is going to retire and make way for another emerging leader.

Second, there is always going to be this core group of voters that will always oppose BJP no matter how inclusive their agenda and their actions are. Some party is going to woo those voters and get their votes. Hence, very likely that there will always be a party or a group of parties that will be a national level opponent of the BJP. 

 

In the long run, I don't want BJP to become this giant that goes uncontested either. We need another party that can keep them in check. But at the moment, because of the way our Parliamentary decision making is structured and the fact that despite an overwhelming mandate, BJP is struggling to pass key legislation, I would like the NDA to get a majority in the Rajya Sabha as well so that we can truly benefit from the mandate provided to the BJP. 

 

1. It is not presence or absence of a dynasty that makes a party uncontested- it is lack of credible opposition from other parties that does that. 

Without it, any party becomes like the Communist party in China or Congress in India : uncontested, do what it wants. Why ? Because it doesnt have to fear the 'one mis-step and its out of power for 4-5 years, the opposition is in power'.

 

2. Having opposing voters does not make for a strong democracy, if the opposition voters are all fragmented and a huge chunk of voters (pro one party) are all united. Because then one party- be it Congress from 30 years ago or BJP in the future- always gets 60-70% of the votes and the rest of the votes are distributed amongst parties too small to matter. 

 

3. It is supposed to be extremely challenging to change the constitution. Overwhelming mandate or no, it requires nearly unanimous mandate over a very long period of time to have all the levels of the parliament in line to make constitutional change. And that is how it should be- constitutional change should not be a matter of few months of populism fervor. The constitution is the very fabric of a nation. And it should only be changed when there is overwhelming, incontrovertible and protracted support form the masses to pass such a mandate. Ie, it should require 8-12 years to change the constitution, if the checks and balances are in place such a way that various levels of the parliament are out of phase with each other- precisely so that it requires multiple, overwhelming mandate, to align both houses : for that is the only sure way to guarantee that an issue an entire country is united behind and is big enough to 'not just go away with a few more twists and turns of the news drama' is the issue that changes the constitution.

 

[BeautifulGame]

India's problem has been regional parties - so many of them that cater to local aspirations yet play a role in national politics (often a regressive one). Ideally, we should have 2 national parties that keep each other in check but can also form a government when voted into power without having to rely on small local players with vested interests. 

 

 

 

India's problem has been the Hindi belt who has kept obsessing with caste and communal politics instead of development.

[jalebi_bhai]

34 minutes ago, Texan said:

BJP is unlikely to become an uncontested "do what you want" kind of a party. And here's why. 

 

The big diffrence here is that the BJP is a democratically elected organization where leadership changes hands and it not bogged down by a dynasty. So, one leader or one thought process is not going to hold the entire party hostage for a long duration. Pretty sure that if Modi wins a second term in 2019, then 5 years later Modi is going to retire and make way for another emerging leader.

Second, there is always going to be this core group of voters that will always oppose BJP no matter how inclusive their agenda and their actions are. Some party is going to woo those voters and get their votes. Hence, very likely that there will always be a party or a group of parties that will be a national level opponent of the BJP. 

 

In the long run, I don't want BJP to become this giant that goes uncontested either. We need another party that can keep them in check. But at the moment, because of the way our Parliamentary decision making is structured and the fact that despite an overwhelming mandate, BJP is struggling to pass key legislation, I would like the NDA to get a majority in the Rajya Sabha as well so that we can truly benefit from the mandate provided to the BJP. 

 

The political discourse is getting more and more nationalistic, which is very good. Secular parties can't win elections with petty identity politics anymore, except maybe Mamta (her case is different). 

 

To be honest, if the BJP does eventually achieve Congress mukt Bharat, then we will see a paradigm shift in Indian politics as a whole. I still don't think we have the seen the full potential of the USHV. Modi and Shah are serious political game changers.

 

What we're witnessing is the battle between followers of Nehru and those of Sardar Patel. It's quite obvious who's winning at the moment. 

[Muloghonto]

3 minutes ago, jalebi_bhai said:

The political discourse is getting more and more nationalistic, which is very good. Secular parties can't win elections with petty identity politics anymore, except maybe Mamta (her case is different). 

 

To be honest, if the BJP does eventually achieve Congress mukt Bharat, then we will see a paradigm shift in Indian politics as a whole. I still don't think we have the seen the full potential of the USHV. Modi and Shah are serious political game changers.

 

What we're witnessing is the battle between followers of Nehru and those of Sardar Patel. It's quite obvious who's winning at the moment. 

Well, for a nation that has been so shaky in embracing nationalism and fixing national issues, it makes sense that nationalist politics will be at the fore. We can't have any other #1 focus, except nationalism, when we have an enemy that is illegally occupying our territorry for 70+ years, where another enemy has unilaterally chomped over 50,000 sq kms of our land, where vote-bank politics sees local politicians protecting illegal immigrants (Mamata) over national interests.

However, IF- and it is a big IF- India manages to reach a position of relative national security - well defined & enforced borders, along with a strong sense amongst the global community that we will give as good as we get, if not better- then the political discourse will follow western trajectory, where it will become about economics. And thats where we will see an economic right/left shift- between people who would prefer a Canada/Scandinavian style nanny state or people who would prefer a US/Saudi style of 'mansion in the middle of a slum, every man/woman for themselves' mentality.

And that, IMO, will be a much more long-term scenario than nationalistic politics.

 

[jalebi_bhai]

34 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

Well, for a nation that has been so shaky in embracing nationalism and fixing national issues, it makes sense that nationalist politics will be at the fore. We can't have any other #1 focus, except nationalism, when we have an enemy that is illegally occupying our territorry for 70+ years, where another enemy has unilaterally chomped over 50,000 sq kms of our land, where vote-bank politics sees local politicians protecting illegal immigrants (Mamata) over national interests.

However, IF- and it is a big IF- India manages to reach a position of relative national security - well defined & enforced borders, along with a strong sense amongst the global community that we will give as good as we get, if not better- then the political discourse will follow western trajectory, where it will become about economics. And thats where we will see an economic right/left shift- between people who would prefer a Canada/Scandinavian style nanny state or people who would prefer a US/Saudi style of 'mansion in the middle of a slum, every man/woman for themselves' mentality.

And that, IMO, will be a much more long-term scenario than nationalistic politics.

 

I don't think Western-style centrally planned govts. work in India. We've been through that phase. Welfarism, on the other hand, will still continue to be part of macro economic solutions. Even the BJP for that matter practices welfarism (Jeevan Bheema, LPG cylinder, Rs. 6000 Doles for pregnant women etc.). It's an inescapable aspect of governance in India and the less corrupt our political leaders, the greater the gains for people in terms of welfare schemes (my little theory). 

 

I'm not sure the Scandinavian model, which is based on high taxation rates, will be embraced by Indians. We really hate paying taxes (congenital problem). So some sort of hybrid Indian model may have to be adopted which is mostly market based, with a touch of necessary welfarism and minimal govt. regulation. 

 

There are innovative minds in the country at SME level. What they need is the right kind of push, less govt. harassment and a level playing field vis a vis MNCs. Whichever party/ies can provide that to the people in the best way possible, they will dominate Indian politics in the near future.