Reacting to the new resolve of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) to counter the Congress more effectively the other day, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi described the extended steering committee meeting of the opposition party last week as a desperate attempt to grab power at Dispur and pooh-poohed its reforms agenda. Gogoi said that the regional party ‘‘is power-hungry’’ and all its baithaks ‘‘are nothing but chasing their dream of how to capture power in Dispur’’ while ‘‘the problems of the common people’’ would be conveniently overlooked. Commenting on the present leadership of the AGP, he said that it had never been so weak before and that ‘‘Brindabon Goswami was a better party president than Chandramohan Patowary.’’ Should the Chief Minister expend so much energy on commenting on the deliberations of the opposition party and on ridiculing its course correction endeavour?
Gogoi believes the AGP is hungry for power and all its conclaves are meant to achieve that end. But does not the Congress too, or for that matter any other party, crave power? Who does not like power? The most interesting aspect of Gogoi’s faux pas is his contestation — subconscious in all likelihood — of the crux of a political party’s aims and objectives. Why should there be a political party in a democracy? To fight elections with the objective of forming a government. Once the government is formed, the party will be required to deliver on its many pre-elections promises. If it succeeds in serving the electorate, it will be returned back, else be defeated. This is the democratic mechanism. The fact of the matter is that it is power and capabilities that power helps build, that inform and motivate a political party in a democracy. What does, for instance, the Congress do when out of power? Search ways and means to defeat the incumbent and capture power. Is this a sin? Not at all. In fact this is what an opposition party is expected to do and evolve — by fashioning itself anew, by adorning its discourse with new ideas, by being different than in the past, by sending out the message that past mistakes have been a wonderful teacher. And this is why democracy is so interesting. However, the Asom Chief Minister seems to belong to a bizarre political school of thought that repudiates the basic theory of democracy.
That said, there is a fundamental difference between the ruling party and the principal opposition party when it comes to their development narratives. The ruling party’s chief political objective is to sustain itself as a ruling party, for which it must be able to convince the people of its utility as a ruling party; every development initiative — including the different kinds of gimmicks — is part of the great exercise to remain in power. And the ruling party has the right to make expert planning to remain in power. After all, it is the people who will decide who is what. However, the principal opposition party is not burdened with the requirement to prove its worth and capabilities as a facilitator and dispenser of development. At most it will try to convince the people of its vision practicality and a new development paradigm to be translated to reality if voted to power. But, as the opposition party will argue, it must first be voted to power so that it can prove its newness, its reformed core, its merit. Yet, if all this is being merely power-hungry as the Asom Chief Minister has discovered, he has only to ask himself what his government’s many ‘development’ plans and packages are actually meant for and what ultimately is the goalpost if not for the Congress to sustain as a ruling party eternally, by whatever means. Why, it is Dispur the Target — for all. THE SENTINEL
Gogoi believes the AGP is hungry for power and all its conclaves are meant to achieve that end. But does not the Congress too, or for that matter any other party, crave power? Who does not like power? The most interesting aspect of Gogoi’s faux pas is his contestation — subconscious in all likelihood — of the crux of a political party’s aims and objectives. Why should there be a political party in a democracy? To fight elections with the objective of forming a government. Once the government is formed, the party will be required to deliver on its many pre-elections promises. If it succeeds in serving the electorate, it will be returned back, else be defeated. This is the democratic mechanism. The fact of the matter is that it is power and capabilities that power helps build, that inform and motivate a political party in a democracy. What does, for instance, the Congress do when out of power? Search ways and means to defeat the incumbent and capture power. Is this a sin? Not at all. In fact this is what an opposition party is expected to do and evolve — by fashioning itself anew, by adorning its discourse with new ideas, by being different than in the past, by sending out the message that past mistakes have been a wonderful teacher. And this is why democracy is so interesting. However, the Asom Chief Minister seems to belong to a bizarre political school of thought that repudiates the basic theory of democracy.
That said, there is a fundamental difference between the ruling party and the principal opposition party when it comes to their development narratives. The ruling party’s chief political objective is to sustain itself as a ruling party, for which it must be able to convince the people of its utility as a ruling party; every development initiative — including the different kinds of gimmicks — is part of the great exercise to remain in power. And the ruling party has the right to make expert planning to remain in power. After all, it is the people who will decide who is what. However, the principal opposition party is not burdened with the requirement to prove its worth and capabilities as a facilitator and dispenser of development. At most it will try to convince the people of its vision practicality and a new development paradigm to be translated to reality if voted to power. But, as the opposition party will argue, it must first be voted to power so that it can prove its newness, its reformed core, its merit. Yet, if all this is being merely power-hungry as the Asom Chief Minister has discovered, he has only to ask himself what his government’s many ‘development’ plans and packages are actually meant for and what ultimately is the goalpost if not for the Congress to sustain as a ruling party eternally, by whatever means. Why, it is Dispur the Target — for all. THE SENTINEL
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