Our party doesn't have the numbers

• Posted by Sindhuri G August 29, 2012 - Filed in Other - 1,978 views

  The conundrum is whether alliance partners supporting the government would like to go to the 2014 polls with the burden of the floundered performances of the Congress party.
  
  UPA-II stands rattled year after year with corruption charges: Commonwealth Games, Adarsh housing scam, Aircel-Maxis deal, 2G and the recent Coalgate. The PM is outrightly responsible for failure to rein in whopping prices, a yawning fall in industrial production, with GDP stuttering and limping at 5.6% and much more.
  
  When Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev occupied anti-corruption centre-stage, the BJP was charged with abdicating the political space and heading for redundancy. The PM, who had given a clean chit to Raja, is now giving himself a clean chit and expects the BJP to fall in line. The PM has resorted to use his mute image as a listless defence against charges of corruption.
  
  Momentarily, even if we ignore the CAG report - which the government prefers to bunk - shunning its constitutional validity, how does one explain the CVC, a constitutional body, again referring allegations in the Coalgate to the CBI to investigate the allocation of mines during 2005-09, the tenure when the PM was the coal minister? How does one ensure an impartial investigation with the PM in the chair?
  
  It is hard to fathom the rationale for political parties that are pressing for a debate knowing well that the government has repeatedly sought refuge under parliamentary cover. The Congress party has pitched for a mechanism to legitimise monumental corruption through parliamentary debates.
  
  Obviously, the BJP does not possess the numbers and a no-confidence motion will fall, giving another legitimate tenure to the PM. For the BJP, it is no more a concern of numbers but of preserving the dignity of the parliamentary forums that is increasingly usurped by numbers.
  
  Battle lines have been drawn for those who desire to stand for corruption and against it. A no-confidence motion is an acclaimed technical parliamentary procedure, but for a bystander, it will be a de facto no-confidence motion against the government that the determined Opposition has to take to a conclusive end.