dna edit: UPA 2 now faces nation's reprimand, no hard feelings

The UPA’s nine-year rule presents a complex picture, where the first five years are clear and bright, and the last four, murky and vicious. Opposition parties and critics are sure to focus on the major scandals exposed through the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of UPA2, wherein the government’s ineptness and corrupt practices have led to estimated losses of Rs70,000 crore in the Commonwealth Games (CWG), Rs1.76 lakh crore in the 2G spectrum allocation, and Rs1.86 lakh crore in the coal block allocation.

It its defence, the Congress and allies will cite their good deeds such as the farmers’ loan waiver in 2004, the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the Right to Education (RTE) Act, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) that provides a minimum of 100 days of employment, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), and the promised Food Security Bill. The government would want to showcase the high economic growth phase of 8% per annum from 2004 to 2010, while the opposition would point to the economic gloom since 2011.

In realistic terms, the Congress and the UPA cannot hope to balance their achievements of the first term with their failures of the second. Indian voters rewarded the UPA’s success in managing the economy and giving hope to the poor by re-electing it in the 2009 general election. In 2013, the UPA will be judged by what it has done in the last four years, and it has been a bad script.

Prime minister Manmohan Singh, finance minister P Chidambaram, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and other economic experts in the government can blame the recession haunting the European Union and US economies for India’s economic woes. Yet, excuses, however legitimate, remain mere excuses. If the UPA reaped the benefit of a buoyant economy in 2009, it will have to then squarely accept the blame for the current market blues.

Beyond the issues of the balance sheet lie some interesting facts of the UPA’s nine years in office. Singh is now the longest serving non-Nehru, non-Gandhi, Congress prime minister, which is a political feat in its own right. The arguments about the merits of Singh as PM are raging all round. The BJP has called him a nominal prime minister who is no leader, while the Congress praises its chief, Sonia Gandhi, for keeping Singh at the helm and thus ensuring a sense of stability.

The Congress win in 2009 was unexpected and a kind of windfall. It was unprepared to rule for the second term and this has showed up in the last four years. The Grand Old Party has also understood that it is no more the unchallenged party of governance as it was from 1952 to 1977 at the Centre. It was out of office between 1996 and 2004. If it is to be voted out of power in the next Lok Sabha elections, it should not come as a surprise.

And, by all counts, the Congress is readying to accept defeat and sit in the opposition.

What the people are looking for now is an alternative to Congress and the UPA. The focus is shifting away from the party and the coalition in power. While the Congress and its allies can celebrate their relatively long stay in office, the opposition cannot say that it has done its job by just pointing to the heinous political indiscretions of UPA2. The people are preparing to vote for another party and coalition. Change seems to be in the air.

Whatever report card that Singh presents to the UPA and the country is a matter of mere curiosity. It will be a poor defence, an unconvincing rationalisation. The people have seen the government’s performance; they are not going to buy the sales pitch of a government that has been hobbling under the burden of successive scams for the last four years. The good the UPA did was rewarded. Now, it is time to accept the reprimand for its acts of omission and commission in the second term, and with no hard feelings.