By Ruma Dubey

After the victory in Karnataka, the Congress Govt should be worried sick and not celebrating. And the BJP instead should be rejoicing.

The mandate of the people is very clear – they have zero tolerance for the corrupt and the BJP, given its Yeddyurappa and the Reddy brothers reputation has been punished by the people of Karnataka. The Congress has come back to power in this state after 7 years; that in itself means that the people have decided to give them a chance (lack of choice too) as they are utterly disgusted with the BJP as of now. They have punished the corrupt.

This is what Congress needs to fear when polls come calling in 2014. People have shown that they do not tolerate the corrupt and Congress has given people enough reasons to trounce them to dust. And that is where the BJP needs to celebrate – as at the Center they are currently at an advantage. Yes, either of them when they are in power are corrupt and if people have to choose the less corrupt, then given the number of scams stacked up against the Congress, BJP could become the clear mandate.

Surely the Congress is smart enough and would have woken up and smelt the coffee today. They too would have recognized the true verdict of the people – zero tolerance to corruption. So be assured, henceforth, everything that they do will be to ensure that this hurt of corruption is soothed with social benefits. Every action of the Congress will now be to only ensure that they introduce social measures which will benefit the people so that when they go to the polls next year, people will remember these benefits and not the various scams. Adjourning the Parliament sine die today was a step exactly in this direction.

The rarely-speaking Prime Minister today stated that his Govt will do everything possible to get the Food Security Bill through and he even spoke of passing an ordinance for the same. Ordinance is not an Act, it is a legal order or law, issued by either the state or the Union Govt when the Parliament is not in session. This is like a temporary arrangement but eventually it has to be passed by the Parliament within six months and then it becomes an Act. And like the bulb popping up bright in the brain, this makes it clear why the Govt adjourned the Parliament today!

The Govt wants to usher in the Food Security Bill, by hook or crook and it believes that this will become a major electoral victory, which it believes will help it erase the shame of the various scams. But the sad truth is that even if this Bill comes in, which is disastrous to begin with, the benefits will not start getting to the people with immediate effect. The time taken to implement this project might be too close to when it goes to the polls. So the people would not have felt the ‘benefits’ as such to forget the scams.

One should now watch every move and action of the Govt. Every action would be a show of benevolence and distributing largesse in the name of working for the poor. Social benefit will be its only motto while the Finance Minister will work towards making the markets and FIIs happy. Together they are hoping that this strategy will help them win in 2014.

All said and done, we can berate the Congress till the cows come home but the underlying truth is that those in the minority, people living on the fringes of the society still have faith in the Congress. It’s like this – after the way MNS treated North Indians, would they vote for the party? Not likely. Here, more than anything else, more than corruption, it is the ideology which the people fear. Similarly when there are other parties with extremities, when there is fear for life, most of the minorities would thus back the Congress as they feel at least they will be alive! And the Congress knows perfectly well that it is this ideology of its – live and let live which will work for them.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That’s where the Congress is today – absolutely corrupt. 2014, if not earlier would be interesting to see, the absolute corruption of power.