Amidst the increasing acrimony and din of the Political build up towards the general elections of 2014, what is perhaps going unnoticed is that the national discourse has veered towards two key elements: 1) Good Governance & 2) Leadership.
The catalyst for making these two elements cornerstones of the upcoming elections is Gujarat.

Let’s examine the Gujarat story line that has been propagated by NaMo and the party:

• Uninterrupted electricity
• Improved irrigation and water supply
• High yield agricultural output
• Consistently above average GDP
• Stability of bureaucratic tenure for accountability

And this forms the backbone of the promise that similar or better transformation can be done for India. Other BJP states have their own claim to good governance for e.g. The Fuel subsidy incentive in Goa to prevent congestion, the irrigation & girl child focus in M.P and an effective Food security scheme in Chattisgarh. It would important to puncture the bogey of “Inclusive Growth” that the Congress keeps harping upon as one fails to see how roads, water , power in Gujarat could NOT have reached all sections of the society!
It would be stating the obvious that the focus on good governance stems from good leadership, the desire to actually deliver on the mandate to govern, NOT rule!

The sad part in the discourse is that while Modi is accused of being power hungry, the congress has actually been making a brazen display of what they believe that power to rule is their monopoly. Sample these:

• Mother appoints Son as Party V.P (on what grounds one may ask?) and states that power is poison. Pray which mother will want poison for her Son, is this not hunger for power?
• Creating artificial leverages by subverting institutions like the CBI, IB, and ED to keep allies of the UPA on leash namely S.P, DMK.
• Under the garb of social welfare hurrying through the FSB, the Land acquisition bill just months before the elections at great cost to exchequer only to encash them for votes.

The shocking part is that in their quest to retain power, the approach has been to belittle their own Country instead of focusing on whatever little was accomplished in the current tenure. Some questions that need answers would be:

• If Gujarat and other BJP ruled states are doing well on (say) GDP does it not add up to India’s overall GDP?
• Are BJP ruled states not part of India? Granted that we have a federal structure but belittling opposition ruled states achievement dis-aggregates the India story tantamount to breeding federal anarchy!
• Repeated non partisan reports have shown that Fake encounter deaths have happened across most states, but keeping alive one case to the extent that we have set the CBI and IB on a collision course, is this not desperation for power at great cost to the future of these key institutions?

The larger picture is that the Congress and its ilk ruled the country one way or the other for six decades, when did they ever drive an election with Governance and Leadership were the cornerstones? Never!

Leadership was a byproduct of a strange subservience of competence to sycophancy and Governance was conveniently equated with ruling and doling out populist schemes with only votes in Mind, progress was accidental! The recent debate on the economic indicators between the NDA rule and the UPA rule leaves a bitter after taste for all well meaning citizens. While it is baffling that the BJP allows comparisons between NDA tenure of six years Vs ten years of the UPA,( baffling because the sad narrative of our country is the little that was accomplished in six decades of congress rule when there was virtually no opposition and media ) one must ask the current govt what is the larger issue? The issue is the complete lack of belief amongst citizens, Indian Investors, foreign Govts and foreign investors in the credibility of the UPA to Govern, credibility is in tatters!

It is almost comic to see that even a crystal ball is put to shame by the economist PM, the Planning commission, a lawyer turned FM every time the IIP plunges, GDP plummets, Rupee slides to new debts, Onion prices shoot up obscenely ! And how is it put to shame? With statements like:

• Economy will pick up two quarters down the line! Why and how please?
• Rupee will stabilize! Stabilize at 80 to a USD?
• Dark clouds across India augur for a good monsoon so prices will come down?

There has been some hard evidence presented by economic analysts namely Gurumurthy, Shankar Aiyar on why the economy is in the state that it is today so will not delve deeper into this but the sheer lack of acceptance that the credibility of India has been destroyed in these ten years is appalling ! and then to try and resurrect credibility by running down well performing states just because they are ruled by opposition smacks of a complete lack of belief in the idea of looking at India as a whole , driven by nothing but an absolute lust for power!

If you read the book “ Accidental India” by Shankar Aiyar, data establishes that the true political architect of reforms of the nineties was P.V. Narasimha Rao and the economic architect was Yashwant Sinha ( Chapter : Bonfire Of The Vanities), although the circumstances of living beyond means were the triggers behind compulsion to initiate reforms against the promises made while securing loans .

This insight is important because, if Manmohan Singh was truly the economic whiz that he has been projected to be over the years, have we seen any instance of concrete remedies spelled out by him in the last 10 years to fix any of the economic issues we are plagued with? We haven’t, right?

The crux of the matter is Congress never looked at their Mandate over decades as a huge responsibility to provide governance , but to rule and the corollary to this is that the party and therefore the nation has paid a price year after year by allowing competence and vision to be sacrificed at the altar of sycophancy!

It is a shame that the contest is between dynasty and merit , between Governing and ruling and therefore elections 2014 would truly be an election where no matter if Modi/BJP lose, but India would have won for the parameters on which India thought and Voted would have been Governance and Leadership!

And for bringing these key parameters to define the discourse of politics and elections, Gujarat and Narendra Modi need to be given credit, notwithstanding the feverish desperation of the ruling dispensation to artificially keep the bogey of communalism alive.

Contributed by Parag Amalnerkar