Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
What the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is doing after his office and the department under his control got exposed in the coal block scam by the Country’s highest Constitutional Authority on audit and accounts, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India?
He himself has been trying and encouraging his cabinet colleagues to damage the credibility of this Constitutional Authority, the CAG.
Such a disservice to the nation from the highest political authority is not found in any democracy.
The parties that practice economy of inequality like the BJP do not look at this intricate offense against India; because, besides being allies of the Congress in plutocracy, their role during the reign of Vajpayee was also averse to the primordial role of CAG in ensuring financial discipline a government is needed to adhere to.
But, the left parties in India too, are conspicuous by their silence over the biting reality that the Prime Minister’s attempt to denigrate the CAG is the most harmful assault on the very structure on which India’s Parliamentary Democracy stands.
Economy being the essence of the country’s life and the basis of all its activities, denigration of CAG by the Prime Minister would precipitate ruin of the credibility of the specific and the only instrument created by the founders of independent India to provide the Parliament with the necessary feedback to make the government answerable and to draw up direction of administration. So, more than the massive scam, the monstrosity of Prime Minister Singh’s attack on CAG deserves serious remedial measures.
The only remedy to this serious syndrome lies in removal of Dr. Singh from the Prime Minister post. The BJP is absolutely right in demanding his resignation as a prerequisite to discussion over the issue in Parliament. Otherwise, it would help Dr. Singh to escape by throwing further confusing tirades against the CAG, notwithstanding how harmful that would be to the economic management of the country.
In this critical juncture, instead of acting a go-between, the left should stand with the BJP in demands for Singh’s resignation. The rank opportunism of the smaller parties that have no adherence to any political economy and no track record of political probity, are susceptible to money-bag influence as has often been observed. Hence a great responsibility lies on the Left to help India get rid of the compradors and, in this respect, their plea for hearing the PM on the issue is of no real utility. If they are serious, they should strengthen the demand for Dr. Singh’s resignation. Dr. Singh’s leader Sonia Gandhi, who is on records to have asked her followers to “attack” the Opposition, must not be allowed to derail democracy by such tricks of browbeating. And, unless the Left becomes one with the BJP in refusing to be browbeaten, the country would suffer an injury that can hardly be tackled instantly.
It pains us recalling that the left’s alliance with Dr. Singh in the preceding Parliament had ushered in the era of India’s subjugation to USA hegemony, specifically in the matter of the nuke deal with that country. The gateway to a “bonanza” to US nuke traders, the Hyde Act was “signed, sealed” and made “irrevocable” by Dr. Singh behind back of the Parliament even though for signing the agreement, the prerequisite was that “the Indian Parliament must agree to the text” of the Hyde Act. The “text” of the Hyde act was not placed before the Parliament and the Left, despite vociferous protests against signing the nuke deal, had never made the point that the Parliament “must agree” or “disagree” to the “text” of the said Act. It had neither wanted the speaker to make the Parliament discuss the “text” of the Hyde Act in order to “agree” or “disagree” to the “text” thereof nor had it terminated its alliance with the Congress on the ground of treachery against the country. It continued its alliance with Dr. Singh, till, smaller fishes, sans any political ideology, were netted in to stand with him in his seeking of confidence in nuke deal context. Such acrobatics are of no gain for the country and it would be wrong again for the left to fall into the trap of debates on the coal scam before Dr. Singh, who has denigrating the CAG for the exposure of the scams in his report, resigns to ensure that through the debate, the Parliament does not become a platform of abuse of the apex auditor.
We have also the experience of how BJP acts in connivance with the Congress when thereby the underworld is sure to benefit. Jaswant Singh’s withdrawal of his motion on collapse of the terror funding bank BCCI is an instance. So, there is no reason for us to believe that the BJP is sincere in its demands for resignation of Dr. Singh.
But to us, resignation of Dr. Singh is the only way to ensure an appropriate appraisal of the CAG report.
When the country has been transformed into a plutocracy by the compradors in nexus with non-communists, the Left is the last hope for our people for revival of democracy and it should not make it the lost hope.
Hence, it is now the Left’s responsibility to strengthen every voice that demands for Dr. Singh’s resignation without bothering about from beneath which flag that voice emanates. Otherwise, it will fail in its duty to our innocent people that are uninformed, less informed, misinformed.