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The "Amethi Model of Development"!
by A. Surya PrakashMr.Rahul Gandhi, the Congress Party's undeclared nominee for the office of Prime Minister, has been constantly mocking at the "Gujarat model of development" and also asserting that the Gujarat model cannot be applied to other parts of the country. Ms.Sonia Gandhi, Rahul's mother and President of the Congress Party and Rahul's sister Priyanka Vadra have also been ridiculing the Gujarat model and shooting barbs at Mr.Narendra Modi, the Gujarat Chief Minister and the Bharatiya Janata Party's nominee for the office of prime minister.
Over the last decade, Mr.Modi has focused on many areas of development including electricity generation and distribution,infrastructure development, conventional energy sources etc. For example, every home in Gujarat is assured of 24 X 7 electricity supply and this has had a positive impact on children's education and domestic industries. There has also been a marked improvement in the quality of roads, schools and hospitals. Gujarat was also one of the early states to launch the emergency ambulance service that ensures immediate and quality first aid to citizens across the state in medical emergencies.
Instead of acknowledging the good work of this state government in all these sectors, the Nehru-Gandhis have been launching a shrill attack on Mr.Modi and have desperately tried to run down his achievements. This has prompted people to ask: What is the Amethi model of development?
This writer has visited Amethi and Rae Bareli on several occasions since 1984. Thirty years ago Amethi was as backward as Mandya or Anantapur and therefore one could say that its development or non-development was at par with districts in other states which were at some distance from the state capital. However, over the last three decades many Indian states have witnessed substantial development and the once backward districts are now flourishing business and agricultural centres with top class infrastructure, roads, hospitals and round-the-clock electricity. One should visit Shimoga Town in the heart of Karnataka now to understand what public representatives can do to a district which reposes faith in them. But poor, poor Amethi, which has been represented almost continuously by the Nehru-Gandhis for over thirty years, finds itself left behind.
So, while Rahul Gandhi pooh-poohs the Gujarat model, what is the Amethi Model of Development? Here is a sample: On a recent visit to the district this writer was shocked to see an angry mob surrounding a truck carrying domestic gas cylinders in Gauriganj. On enquiry, one learnt that this is a weekly affair in Amethi. Every consumer is required to register with the gas agency for a refill and wait for the truck to arrive. On an average one has to wait for a fortnight to get a refill. When the fresh stock arrives, the agency does not inform the consumer who has registered for a refill. So, consumers lay in wait on the highway, sometimes from morning to dusk and swoop on the truck on arrival. Then comes some rowdy exchanges and fisticuffs amongst consumers on who has the first right to a refill. Ultimately, those who succeed in getting a refill triumphantly carry the cylinders of on their motorcycles.
Domestic gas production and distribution is in the direct charge of the Union Ministry of Petroleum. Since Rahul Gandhi has been the MP from Amethi for ten long years and since he has been running the Union Government by proxy along with his mother, how come he could not do a simple thing like ensuring smooth distribution of LPG cylinders to his constituents? We must call this The Amethi Model of Development!
Equally shocking were the tales one heard about distribution of kerosene, a critical fuel for families below the poverty line and sugar from the Public Distribution System. Since kerosene is used to adulterate diesel and also for industrial purposes, black marketers eye this product unlike anything else. In Amethi, the story is that local 'Dabangs' (bullies) corner the kerosene stocks that come into the district every month. The PDS shopkeeper shoos away poor consumers who seek their monthly quota of kerosene. According to Amethi residents, they are denied their legitimate quota of kerosene for 9 months in a year. Like, kerosene, sugar too disappears from the PDS network. How come the MP from Amethi is unaware of this and how come he has done nothing to set this right? But then, we must remember that this is The Amethi Model of Development!
Let us now look at another key element that makes for a better life for the poor, the middle class and the rich - Electricity. Although the Nehru-Gandhi family has enjoyed continuous power at the Centre since independence, the power supply situation in Amethi and Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituencies is pathetic. Residents of Amethi town and the villages say that electricity supply is totally erratic and that their lives are miserable, specially in the dreadfully hot summer months from April to October. Electricity supply in the rural parts of these constituencies is confined to about ten hours per day. There is electricity in the morning one week and during the night the following week. Villagers say that they look forward to power supply to charge their mobile phones. Those who are slightly better off, charge their inverters as well. Power supply is better in Rae Bareli and Amethi towns, but even here, residents of Amethi say they face power cuts for a couple of hours every day. However, the large mass of people living in the villages in these two constituencies survive without electricity for most of the day. The villagers say that they have got "habituated" to it. They sleep on their terraces or under trees and since electricity is never there, their lives do not revolve round it. But, there are limits to their patience as well. That is why 1000 voters of Tyonsi Village, who have lived without electricity for 15 years have told the media that they are not voting in this election to protest against the non-performance of their MP.
Contrast this with Gujarat where Narendra Modi has ensured 24 X 7 electricity to every home in a big state. Therefore, it is rather funny to see the MP from Amethi taking pot shots at Mr.Modi on a daily basis, when he is unable to ensure even ten hours of electricity to his constituents in a single district which he has represented for ten long years and which his family has represented for several decades before that. But the most frightening thing is that Rahul Gandhi wants the entire country to adopt The Amethi Model of Development!
In both Amethi and Rae Bareli, the condition of primary schools is pathetic. Most of these schools do not have drinking water facilities or toilets. Many of them have no boundary walls, so much so that villagers defecate around the school building daily and the children have to wade through all this to reach their class rooms. The Union Government has launched a national scheme for construction of toilets and is even tom-tomming this as a major initiative of the UPA coalition, but neither Ms.Sonia Gandhi nor Mr.Rahul Gandhi have found it necessary to get the scheme to their constituencies. Mr.Gandhi must visit schools in rural Karnataka, Maharastra, Gujarat and even Madhya Pradesh to learn how clean and neat schools can be. He could also learn from MPs representing these constituencies on how they invest their time and effort to improve basic infrastructure in their constituencies. If he does that and if he has the capacity to learn from fellow MPs, one can be certain that he will dump The Amethi Model of Development.
The fifth and most obvious and visible example of constituency neglect by the man who represents it in Parliament is the state of the roads in a constituency. Amethi scores low on this count as well. Travel from Jagdishpur to Amethi via Gauriganj and you will have a sense of how responsible the MP representing Amethi has been. Parts of the road from Gauriganj to Amethi is absolutely pathetic. The Amethi-Pratapgarh road is equally bad. Some of the worst roads in this area are the roads connecting Sultanpur and Gauriganj and Gauriganj and Rae Bareli. These are all roads crisscrossing the constituencies represented by the Nehru-Gandhis for decades.
Mr.Rahul Gandhi talks every day about the food security bill and the reformed public distribution system (PDS) that the UPA Government has implemented. If this is the reformed PDS – local goons cornering kerosene and sugar supplies and LPG cylinders – one wonders what it must have been like in the preceding decades!
It must indeed be the greatest irony of Indian politics that a district which reposed faith in a family that has ruled this country either directly or through proxy for close to 50 years since independence, is today one of the laggards in regard to development. Asked why the Nehru-Gandhis have neglected Amethi and Rae Bareli in this manner, more than one person told this writer that the Nerhru-Gandhis had developed a vested interest in poverty, under-development and illiteracy. Another said "If you can garner votes simply by waving your hand at the crowds, why do you have to develop the constituency?". After seeing Amethi 2014, it was rather amusing to hear Ms.Priyanka Vadra claim in a campaign speech in the constituency that her brother Rahul was a "doordarshi" (person with foresight)!
http://www.asuryaprakash.com/The-Amethi-Model-of-Development.php
THE PLIGHT OF CONGRESS – NA GHAR KA, NA GHAT KA
Unable to contain the Modi juggernaut, the Congress Party, which has consistently pursued a policy of minority appeasement for ten full years is now playing its final gambit before the Lok Sabha election to frighten the religious minorities and consolidate their votes in its favour.
This was the purport of Congress President Sonia Gandhi's recent meeting with the Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmed Bukhari and a few other Muslim clerics. However laughable it may sound, reports of the meeting say that Ms.Gandhi appealed to the Shahi Imam to ensure that "secular votes" did not split during the Lok Sabha election. This has been the consistent line of the Congress Party ever since Ms.Sonia Gandhi became its President. The party believes that only Muslims, Christians and such other religious minorities are "secular" and that the Hindu majority is not, forgetting that India would never have had a secular, democratic Constitution and political system, if the Hindu majority was not secular.
Not satisfied with the Congress Party's decade-long dalliance with Muslim appeasement, the Shahi Imam is understood to have told Ms.Gandhi that innocent Muslim youth were arrested in terror cases. He wanted reservations for Muslims in educational institutions and better security for Muslims during communal riots. He also wanted implementation of the recommendations of the Sachar Committee Report and the report of the Ranganatha Misra Commission. Obviously Ms.Gandhi would have offered the appropriate assurances to the clerics. The Shahi Imam has since openly declared his commitment to the Congress Party.
As the election campaign enters the final lap, the Congress Party finds itself driven to a corner and is desperately in need of some solid support from the Muslim community. However, the irony is that despite ten years of appeasement, the Muslims have begun to desert the Congress Party. They swung away from the Congress many years ago in Uttar Pradesh and most of their votes are now shared by the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. The last assembly election in Uttar Pradesh saw a massive swing of Muslims towards the SP. But what has hurt the Congress Party the most was the huge swing of Muslims in Delhi towards the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi State Assembly Election last December. In that election, Muslim voters were torn between the Congress and the AAP. Although the Congress won five of its 8 assembly seats in Delhi in Muslim dominant areas, it suffered heavy losses because of the split of the Muslim vote.
Independent surveys have shown that while in the past, around 65-70 per cent of the Muslim voters supported the Congress Party in the capital, this dropped to about 45 per cent in the 2013 assembly election. The biggest beneficiary was AAP, which took away about 35 per cent of the Muslim vote.
Ms.Gandhi's meeting with the Shahi Imam is meant to drive home the message to Muslims that in the Lok Sabha election they must all rally round the Congress Party, as otherwise a Narendra Modi-government will be a certainty.
The Congress Party has often frightened the Muslims into voting for it, by pointing a finger at the Bharatiya Janata Party and saying that religious minorities would be unsafe if the BJP were to come to power. The BJP has been in power in several states in the country for several years and there is no evidence to suggest that the Muslims are discriminated against by the BJP governments in any of these states. That is why this gambit may not pay of this time.
Congress managers are baffled at the attitude of Muslims towards the party, despite the Congress' open policy of minority appeasement. Before the advent of the United Progressive Alliance Government led by the Congress in 2004, no other government at the national level had resorted to such blatant measures to appeal to a section of the population. This attitude of appeasement of religious minorities and especially Muslims by the Congress Party and its President has had its impact on every facet of government, be it appointments to key posts or policies or laws. The first act of the UPA government on coming to power in 2004 was to appoint the National Commission for Religious and Linguistics Minorities headed by Justice Ranganath Misra in October, 2004. This commission was asked to recommend welfare measures for socially and economically backward sections among these minorities. This commission suggested reservations for Muslims and other minorities in government jobs and educational seats.
Then came the Sachar Committee, which was appointed in 2005 by Mr.Manmohan Singh to prepare a report on the social, economic and educational conditions of the Muslim community. This committee made many controversial suggestions and even made a preposterous attempt to take a communal head count of the Indian Armed Forces. This was strongly rebuffed by the armed forces establishment and sections of the media, which felt that the Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh combine was taking its minority appeasement policy to absurd levels and going berserk. What was even more tragic was the acquiescence of persons like Justice Rajinder Sachar in an activity that was blatantly anti-national, as it sought to disturb the secular character of the country's armed forces. The Sachar Committee also glossed over the irresponsible acts of Muslim clerics who launched a campaign against the polio vaccine thus causing many Muslim children to be afflicted with the dreaded virus. Neither of these two bodies thought it fit to examine the pernicious effect that Muslim clerics were having on the social and economic and educational conditions of the Muslims and the communal poison that they regularly injected into the community.
In fact minority appeasement reached such low depths during Mr.Manmohan Singh's prime ministership that often it appeared as if the government was run by persons who had developed a visceral hatred for the Hindu majority. The first draft of the Communal Violence Bill was a clear pointer in this direction. This Bill, drafted by persons close to Ms.Sonia Gandhi, held Hindus responsible and accountable in every communal riot situation. This obnoxious law was founded on the premise that whenever there is a communal riot, the majority community would have to take the blame. Similarly, Hindu officers in government and police would be held accountable. Never before has Indian Parliament seen such a blatantly communal law coming before it. Further, in order to make things abundantly clear, Mr.Manmohan Singh declared publicly that Muslims had the first right to resources in the country.
It is indeed ironic that a party that titled so fully towards the Muslims for ten years is now almost begging for Muslim votes in the country. Meanwhile, because of the party's sustained tilt towards the minorities, the Congress Party may have forfeited the votes of substantial sections of the Hindu majority. It now finds itself bereft of both the majority and the minority votes and is therefore falling between two stools. "Na Ghar Kaa, Na Ghat Kaa" as they say in Hindi.
http://www.asuryaprakash.com/The-Plight-of-Congress-Na-Ghar-Ka-Na-Ghat-Ka.php