As expected (and claimed), Rahul
Gandhi met a group of farmers before the Sunday rally at the Ramlila Ground.
As expected, he did not make any
press appearance.
Instead, Congress came up with a
website – www.zameenwapsi.com – a day before the mega farmers rally on April
19, that in turn, is a day before the Lok Sabha resumes its Budget Session.
Many in Congress are naming the
rally as Rahul’s comeback event but the wise ones are planning it as
pro-farmers rally that is intented to launh a series of protests against the
land acquisition amendment ordinance.
So, basically it is anti-BJP movement
enveloped as ‘Congress’ hands with farmers’ and this website is a reminder of
how desperate the Congress party is to reclaim the lost ground.
This ‘desperateness’ is visible
in many forms and one is the leadership crisis in the party. Good days are
always taken care of but the whole party looks at party’s first family with
folded hands during bad days. No one talks of the any other possible leadership
that would be natural choice in any other political party.
And this website, with all
technicalities, is an extension to that.
Here, the website begins with
Rahul Gandhi (as expected). Sonia Gandhi, naturally, finds the place on the
front page at the other edge. The second page is with Rajiv Gandhi. Manmohan
Singh finds place on the third page along with Rahul and Sonia. After all, he
is the previous prime-minister and it was under his government that the
Congress’ land acquisition law was passed. Rahul was again on the fourth page.
Other Congress leaders are absent
from the website (as expected). Also absent are Jawahar Lal Nehru, Lal Bahadur
Shasti and Indira Gandhi. And above all, the site’s frontage misses Mahatma
Gandhi though the timeline about land acquisition in India that it talks about
dates back to 1894.
Typical measures by the Congress
party, very typical to its halfhearted but desperate measures of now!
Hopefully, other leaders
including the historical figures find their place as the days pass on, though
the site, and overall activity by the Congress party, which aims to lead the
political opposition in targeting the BJP led NDA government, has an inherent
danger of legitimising Narendra Modi that no one in Congress is, perhaps,
thinking about.
Can Congress start to reclaim the
lost ground with this ‘return of the land to its rightful owner’ pledge?
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
