Governance means patriotism. Nothing mystical about it.

As the elections are coming to a close there is a lot of discussion about ' governance ' and the role of the National Advisory Council under Ms Sonia Gandhi. As Congress President Ms Gandhi had the real power which she exercised through the Council. The Prime Minister was merely a front man who was ignored by his cabinet colleagues most of the time. He was even insulted in public when Mr Rahul Gandhi said that the ordinance on corrupt MPs was " complete nonsense ". " If you want to fight corruption in the country whether it is Congress or BJP, we cannot continue making these small compromises. Because if we make these small compromises, then we compromise everywhere," he said. Wise words, but why only now? Why not during the last 10 years that the Congress hung on to power with the support of the corrupt and when people protested in the streets they were ruthlessly beaten up? When asked about the various scams the Prime Minister invoked " coalition dharma " as a cop out, meaning that coalition partners were misbehaving. Yet it was the Congress that forgave all loans to farmers which saddled banks with bad loans as farmers took more loans in the belief that they would be forgiven again. Honest farmers saw themselves as fools and rushed to take advantage of future waivers and so in one move a culture of dishonesty was born. As elections loomed the Congress, faced with certain defeat, quickly passed the Land Acquisition Act which makes it almost impossible to acquire land for infrastructure projects and set up the Seventh Pay Commission to increase salaries of useless civil servants which will add to the fiscal deficit. In an attempt to discredit Mr Narendra Modi the Commerce department asked Accenture to look into land acquisition in various states. The report says that Gujarat has the best policy so our most revered Commerce and Industry Minister, Anand Sharma said that his ministry did not set up the commission. That apparently is a blatant lie.
However, the biggest puzzle is why the Prime Minister allowed communist policies of the NAC to destroy the economy. After all he is an economist and has many highly intelligent people to advise him. He must have known that vast handouts will create soaring inflation which would stall growth completely. He could have threatened to resign as he did on the nuclear deal. But he hung on. " I have never felt like quitting. I will stay the course," he said. In response to charges of corruption he said," You cannot suggest your preferences and you have to go by the choice of the leader of the party." They say that Ms Gandhi chose Mr Singh because he was not strong like Mr Narasimha Rao. She may yet discover the extreme danger of his weakness.