Showing posts with label sharad pawar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sharad pawar. Show all posts

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Indian Political League

Though IPL is shifted outside India, still there won't be any dearth of entertainment this summer, another IPL (Indian Political League) is going to take place. It is going to be a huge show with official governmental spending of 15000 crore rupees (three time the amount spent in US elections). Who will be the winner in this reality show?

The tournament will take place in two rounds. In the first round, people of India will vote and elect their representatives. In the next round these representatives among themselves will decide about the winner of the competition.

It seems as if people of India are divided on who should lead them. Some people will vote based on caste, some will vote based on region and there will be very few who will vote for the betterment of the nation. The result of the first round is therefore a foregone conclusion. hung assembly with no coalition getting clear majority.

This therefore makes second round more interesting and offers minnows a chance to get top chair. So who are the main contenders?

1] Mayawati
2] Mulayam singh
3] Lalu prasad
4] Sharad Pawar

Mayawati is an official third front candidate backed by the Left, TDP, Jayalalita etc. There are good chances that Third front will get around 120+ seats with Mayawati winning 30 odd seats nationwide. But will either congress or bjp support mayawati? Looks difficult as she is politically very ambitious and will trouble congress and bjp both in Uttar pradesh.

Mulayam Singh will get support from Left and congress will also support him to thwart Mayawati. But considering the Mayawati wave it seems difficult for him to repeat the success of 2004 elections when he won 35 seats. So for him to become PM he just needs to win more seats than other smaller parties which still looks difficult.

Same is the case with Lalu Prasad. Nitish Kumar is doing too good in Bihar to allow Lalu to get 20 odd seats in Bihar. But he manages to do that he will be the first choice for congress and Left is not going to oppose him on ideological grounds.

Sharad Pawar also has good friends across the parties. SP has already declared support for his candidature. Last year Left parties have already made clear that in UPA he is the only consensus candidate.
His main problem will be support from congress.
Will congress support him over Mayawati is a main question. Some people in congress do not consider him a long term threat like Mayawati. That could go in his favor.

Whoever wins it is really going to be a terrific competition this summer. The reason I did not even discussed the candidature of Adavani and Manmohan (or for that matter Rahul) is simply because both BJP and Congress can not win 120 odd seats this times which will make the combine number of other smaller parties bigger. After all it is a number game.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Deficit in food supply

After a long time, India is facing scarcity of Wheat and Rice. Despite having good mansoons since last four years, this situation has arised. What are the reasons.
The reasons are political. For that one should know how the public distribution system works in India.
The agiculture is a state subject. Whatever surplus production of cereals take place in State, it becomes a responsibility of the state to make this surplus available to the public distribution system of our Country. But the states which do not have Congress or its ally in power did not contribute to the PDS. Same is the case of states ruled by the left parties. Now these states are the traditional suppliers of wheat and rice to the country. It is unfortunate that the politics has creeeped in such vital national issue. It's a really shameful situation. Therefore Government of India has to procure a third grade wheat from Australia and it gave a political weapon for opposition and left parties.
Now when union PDS minister Sharad Pawar declared in parliament the contributions made by the states ruled by opposition and left parties to the PDS, the real issue came to forefront.
With the changing food consumption patterns the demand of wheat and rice is increasing all over the India, the politics between the BJP led NDA, Left parties and Congress has aggravated the situation. India is really in the hands of third grade politicians. Unfortunately the media is also not interested in bringing such issues to the forefront. The people of India are really not well informed about the government machinery and the way it functions. The media is doing too little to change this.