Today, in a desperate effort,
intended to score points of the votebank appeasement politics, like its
character has been/has become, the grand old party of India having its origin in late 19th
Century, the Congress party, did what was expected from it.
And in doing so, not learning
lessons from the recent poll drubbings, they tell us they are yet to go into
some serious thinking mode on what led them to this historic low. Yes, the loss
was written and widely analysed but no one could gauge it was going to be so
humiliating.
The assembly polls in the state
are due later this year and the Maharashtra
government, led by the Congress-NCP combine, is in imminent danger of losing
its hold on the state power corridors as well. In the recently held Lok Sabha
polls, the ruling combine could win only 6 seats out of 48.
And instead of putting serious
thoughts into ‘whys’ of this political gloom for them to address the ‘real’
issues before the polls, they are still busy in devising cosmetic measures hoping
they would be able to tackle the sky-high anti-incumbency, somehow, like the
Congress led UPA government in Centre had ‘envisioned’.
And proposing reservation quota
for the targeted votebanks has been among the most practiced cosmetic measures
of the Congress party in the recent political history of India,
irrespective of the fact it has failed to deliver most of the times.
Maharashtra
government today proposed 16% reservation for Maratha people and 5% for
Muslims. It is nothing but a poll sop, to go to these votebanks, claiming their
right on the votes ‘in lieu of’ this largesse that is going to remain on
papers.
Tomorrow, some PIL will be filed and
the High Court will give stay order as has been the case in many other such
cases, where states breach the 50% reservation ceiling. Also, the Indian Constitution
is clear that reservation cannot be given on religious basis. And no one can
say how this ‘Maratha reservation card’ is going to play, in courts, and in the
electoral arena.
Even the politicians proposing
the reservation quota in such arbitrary ways realize it but being politicians,
they don’t care. They just need some talking points to exploit the electoral
sentiments.
In the recent political history,
every such political attempt by the Congress party has backfired. Attempts to
introduce the Muslim reservation (before assembly and Lok Sabha polls) have
been blocked by the Supreme Court regularly and have not translated into
electoral victories for the Congress party. Giving minority status to Jains was just a
filler, a symbolic step, never important electorally, but it was yet another
window into the pre-poll mentality of the Congress party. Another electoral ploy
of giving reservation to Jats just before the Lok Sabha polls proved a dud. The
poll results showed the Jats voted for the BJP, in Haryana, in Rajasthan and in
Western Uttar Pradesh.
And yet, they don’t change. No
lessons learnt yet. No efforts to learn lessons yet.