Dear Editor,
With regard to your international news item, ‘Scandal blow puts Indian government in danger’ (SN, Feb 6), it is hardly likely that the Congress government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Gandhi clan will fall as a result of corruption scandals. Mr Singh is a clean politician but several individuals around him are mired in corruption. I was recently in India and plan to return again very soon to study the country’s state voting patterns. As academics informed me and as I learnt from my lectures in India, corruption is a way of life.
People have gotten accustomed to it although they condemn it, and would like to see the corrupt prosecuted. In India, as in most Third World countries including Guyana, very few among the corrupt have been prosecuted, although lately the Indian Supreme Court, in public interest cases, has issued orders for the corrupt to be prosecuted.
The Congress Party in India is in the midst of an election campaign in five states that could give some signal about its future prospects. But the Congress MPs are not likely to rock the boat as they don’t want to face the electorate certain many of them will not be re-elected. While the results in the state elections will send a signal about the popularity of the regional parties, the parties themselves are unsure of their support for national elections and will not want to face the voters mid-term. The government still has two more years in its term. The people are expressing voter fatigue with the government at the centre, especially over the corruption scandals that have rocked central and state governments over the last seven years.
With regard to the outcome of state elections, in those states where the Congress is not the incumbent, the party is likely to improve its position. The incumbents are likely to see their support decline. The Gandhi clan, Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka, are campaigning in all of the Poll-bound states. The trio have stormed into Uttar Pradesh to which most Indo-Guyanese trace their roots.
Because of corruption and abuse of power in UP, Congress and the opposition BJP are likely to make electoral gains. The dalit or Chamar (a low caste) party, BSP, which won a majority of 206 seats in the last elections in 2007 will see its fortunes slide. The BSP is led by Mayawati, who has served four times as the state’s Chief Minister. The other major competitor is the SP, another caste based party representing the Yadav caste. A new party of youth activists called the Peace Party will pull votes away from the four major contenders making the outcome difficult to predict. The Muslims, who voted BSP and SP last time, could also affect the outcome switching to the Congress to boost that party’s chances. As it is, no party will win a majority as happened in 2007. There is likely to be a hung Assembly. Once the Congress makes gains and indications are it will do well in UP, it will strengthen the Congress at the centre. Calls for the party to step down from office will diminish if it also picks up seats in other states and if the corrupt are prosecuted. This will be an amazing feat for a party on the back foot following a storm of corruption allegations. While Con-gress is unpopular because of corruption, voters don’t view the others as alternatives, and that has been the main issue in Indian politics since the BJP was ousted in 2004. For now, Manmohan is safe as PM although he must be embarrassed by all the revelations of corruption since he assumed the post.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
