The Congress in various guises.

Since independence on August 15, 1947 India has had 15 individuals as Prime Minister of which 8 were from the Congress Party. Jawaharlal Nehru, Gulzarilal Nanda, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Narasimha Rao and now Manmohan Singh are all frankly Congress. Of the 7 others 6 had been members of the Congress at some point in their lives and had left due to differences. Morari Desai of Janata Party was Prime Minister for 2 years, 4 months and 4 days, Ch Charan Singh, Janata Party for 5 months and 17 days, VP Singh, Janata Dal for 11months and 8 days, Chandra Shekhar Singh, Samajwadi Janata Party for 7 months and 11 days, HD Deve Gowda, Janata Dal for 10 months and 20 days and IK Gujral, Janata Dal for 11 months and 28 days. Only one, Atal Bihari Vajpayee has never been a member of the Congress in his life. Influenced by Shyama Prasad Mukherjee he joined Jan Sangh and then formed the BJP. He was Prime Minister for 15 days and then again for 6 years, 2 months and 3 days. So in the 64 years, 7 months and 10 days since independence the Congress or one of its fellows in disguise has ruled this country for more than 58 years. The Congress claims to speak for the aam aadmi or the ordinary man and yet the biggest debate today is on the definition of poverty. Last year the Planning Commission said that anyone earning less than Rs 32/day in urban areas and Rs 26/day in rural areas is poor but has revised the figures as Rs 28.65/day for urban areas and Rs 22.40/day for rural areas. This has caused widespread outrage as all the bleeding hearts have jumped on the figures as proof of the callous indifference of the government towards suffering of the poor. They have challenged the Deputy Chairman to live one day on Rs 32 and show everyone if it is possible. The point is not what constitutes poverty but why we are having such a discussion at all after 64 years of independence. The reason is obvious. It is the Congress and its policies which are responsible. The Soviet Union is no more and today's Russia is capitalist. China is frankly capitalist with the Communist Party in control. Cuba is taking hesitant steps towards opening its economy. Only North Korea still follows a Stalinist model and is so poor that it cannot feed its people. Venezuela is managing in spite of Hugo Chavez's Socialist policies because of its oil but crime rates are so high that bodies pile up in mortuaries. The Congress in India is trapped in a time warp of high taxes and social schemes for the poor because it gives huge opportunities for loot. The recent budget was an example. Yesterday our most revered Finance Minister said that the government will have to take tough decisions. Tough for whom? Politicians have everything paid for by the taxpayer. The government has just announced a rise of 7%, from 58% of basic salary to 65%, for 4 million useless civil servants adding another Rs 74.75 billion to expenditure. We, the aam aadmi will suffer as inflation jumps to over 10% again. And the Congress will gleefully announce more social schemes. Damned.