The General Secretary of the Indian National Congress, newly appointed as in-charge of Communication, Jairam Ramesh did a podcast with the Editor of ANI, Smita Prakash. He was upset that while he is ready to debate on topics related to economics, the constitution and politics, the media is focused on the cost of the T-Shirt that Rahul Gandhi wears, who he meets etc. Jairam Ramesh forgot that the debate around the cost of dresses was started by Rahul Gandhi himself, but we are not getting into that debate in this article.
At around the 48:00 minute in this video, in quick succession, Jairam Ramesh mentioned 5 points on which he wanted debates to happen, but was upset that those don’t happen. So, I thought it would be good to discuss his 5 points in a detailed article.
1.Political centralisation is results in states getting weaker.
Every time Congress party says something like this, my mind immediately goes to the below picture from the Invest Karnataka Summit from the year 2016.
On stage, you can see a long list of Union Cabinet ministers along with the Chief Minister of Karnataka. What’s so great about the picture you may ask? The union ministers all represent the BJP and the Karnataka Chief minister represents the Congress party. So what? You may wonder! Below is a picture from the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in the year 2013.
You do not see a single Union Cabinet minister, because it was the UPA that was in power at the centre and therefore they used to make sure that Union ministers are not at summits organised by the BJP-led governments in the state!
The 2016 Karnataka picture is not an exception. Accompanied by a host of his colleagues, India’s Finance Minister spoke at West Bengal Investor Summit in 2015 and inaugurated the Make in Odisha conclave in 2016 – both ruled by staunch opponents of the BJP. All these participations are in addition to equivalent participation in BJP-ruled states too.
But here’s what is worse – in 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi requested the Chief Ministers of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka to join him on his China tour. Karnataka Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah (from the Congress party) refused to travel with the PM for political reasons. It is the Congress party that played petty politics at the risk of investments to the state of Karnataka (incidentally the home state of Jairam Ramesh!) and today wants a debate on “Political centralisation results in states getting weaker”!
It is not just the participation at the investment summits that can be highlighted towards the Narendra Modi government’s efforts to make all states stronger. At a media summit, the then Punjab Chief Minister, Amarinder Singh was asked – “Is it easy working with the centre?”. Pat comes the reply from Captain Amarinder Singh – “I have no problems. I am getting full cooperation”.
You may snark and say Amarinder Singh now joined the BJP. But then at the same summit in the same panel was Chief Minister H.D.Kumaraswamy who reiterated the same sentiment – “I have no problems working with the centre”. We have had KCR himself and his son KTR also praise the Modi government for assisting the state of Telangana, several times. As recently as 2 days back, Rajasthan’s Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot praised the Union minister Prahalad Joshi for helping them with the coal crisis.
You may still be a cynic and say that all these folks are political opportunists who will ally with the BJP or are angry with the Congress party. And for that argument, I give you this – Kerala Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan. Despite all that clamour of social media during the Kerala floods, he has publicly said “it shows how supportive the Centre has been towards Kerala”. Certainly, you cannot accuse the Communists of helping the BJP!
All these statements of the Chief Ministers are a far cry from how they used to be during the UPA. Sample this – in the year 2011, the Congress Chief Minister of Maharashtra accused the Congress-led UPA central government of not giving enough funds to Maharashtra!
The GST Council is on the best examples of involving all states in the decision-making process of the states. A total of 47 meetings have been held so far, and except for one meeting, all decisions in all these meetings were taken unanimously. Can you even begin to imagine the scale of this effort?
Today, states get 10% more money than what they used to get pre-2015 from Central revenues. Today, all states get a proportionate share in 100s of infrastructure projects (ranging from roads to rail to airports to bridges to tunnels and so on!). Today, MPs cutting across party lines appreciate the PM for clearing long pending projects in their areas. Would all of this have been possible with a vengeful Congress government at the helm of affairs? Do all of these examples really mean that the states are getting weaker?
2.Constitutional bodies getting weaker.
Someone says Constitutional bodies are getting weaker and my mind immediately goes to this letter written by the then Chief Election Commissioner to the President of India, accusing the Election Commissioner Navin Chawla of leaking information to the Congress party. Or to the fact that another former CEC, M.S.Gill, joined the Congress party immediately after his retirement and soon became a minister in a Congress-led government.
Speaking of Constitutional bodies, the Productivity of the 15th Lok Sabha has been the worst in the last 50 years! Imagine, the worst ever! Sonia Gandhi’s UPA was in power during this term and in fact, was in its 2nd term. The 16th Lok Sabha (2014 to 2019) worked 20% more hours than the 15th LS, but more importantly, the “proportion of time spent by 16th Lok Sabha on legislation (32%) is higher than other Lok Sabhas”. 32% higher than the other Lok Sabhas! And Congress makes an argument that Constitutional bodies are getting weaker?
Speaking of Constitutional bodies, many of the far-reaching recommendations of the 14th and 15th Finance Commissions were accepted in totality, thus strengthening both the centre and the states. In fact, the Modi government strengthened the Finance Commissions themselves by laying out fresh guidelines that make use of the latest information and technology to help recommend the best course of action for the country!
Speaking of Constitutional bodies, we have witnessed how the office of the Prime Minister of India has been abjectly surrendered during the rule of Sonia Gandhi’s UPA (examples galore).
3.Constitution being ignored.
History is replete with examples of how the Congress party “ignored” the Constitution! The several times it dismissed popularly elected state governments; the imposition of Emergency in the country and subsequent amendments to the constitution; and the creation of parallel power structures (such as the all-powerful NAC under Sonia Gandhi), are all prime examples of how the Congress party has actually ignored the Constitution. And yet the newly appointed Communications in charge of the Congress party actually wants us to believe that the Constitution is being ignored by the BJP!
4.Polarisation is taking place. And is intensifying.
A very simple metric demolishes this argument to pieces. There were nearly 70-80 documented large riots in India when the Congress was in power. There are not even 10 large riots documented in India when the BJP was in power (for 14 years now). The father of polarization is the Congress party. Congress Chief Ministers have accused Congress MPs of engineering riots to grab their chair – can anything get worse than this? The Congress is shocked that today many Hindus are vocal about their way of life; their practices and their beliefs. And unable to grasp this awakening, they resort to a silly classification of “polarization”!
5.Economic Inequality is increasing.
Centuries-old cliché that doesn’t hold much relevance to today’s India. Rahul Gandhi’s stress on Ambani and Adani has become so boring that even his own state CMs are ignoring his rhetoric now. India has seen a record number of Income Tax filers; a record number of additions to the EPFO portal; a record number of automobile sales; a record number of mobile manufacturing and sales; we can go on and on about how today’s India is working hard to bridge the inequality gap. The Congress is however struck with this broken record of Ambani-Adani.
Jairam Ramesh’s diatribe against the media is nothing new. The Congress’s latest strategy seems to be to play the victim by saying they aren’t getting enough space to speak. Apart from a few delusional folks in Congress, there is no one who believes that the Congress party doesn’t get enough space! It is high time they realise that both their message and messenger need to change. It is high time they stop blaming people of India for not realising the awesomeness of Rahul Gandhi.
