By Tarunkumar Singhal, Raman Jokhakar, Chartered Accountants
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Ordinary people won’t be happy with the politics of obstructionism. Recently, the BJP stalled Parliament at taxpayers’ cost. Then it decided to take anti-UPA protests to the streets, along with reforms-bashers like the Left. The result was partially effective “Bharat bandh” coming at the aam aadmi’s cost. The biggest irony is that the BJP, thanks to which Parliament’s monsoon session was washed out, now wants a special session to discuss the UPA’s nod to retail FDI!
Certainly, the main opposition party should seek answers from the government on important issues, including corruption. However, the place for such interrogation is Parliament. The BJP is also within its rights to disagree with government initiatives, be it subsidy reduction or retail reform. But to come across as neither interested in debate nor offering alternatives to the policies it bashes, doesn’t bolster the party’s image. The BJP seems more concerned with destabilising the government than with resolving issues.
Why does the BJP limit its critique of the diesel price hike or retail reform to making noise? Surely, it should also prescribe how it thinks India should promote much-needed fiscal consolidation. Petrol prices rose several times under the tenure of the NDA, which endorsed price decontrol in 2002. Nor was the NDA hostile to retail reform, as pointed out by commerce minister Anand Sharma. Opposing multi-brand retail FDI today, the BJP must explain how else investors can be made to help boost the agri-value chain. Or how direct contact between farmers and buyers could be facilitated to raise farm incomes and lower prices for consumers.
When ruling at the Centre, the NDA brandished pro-growth policies to claim India was shining. Today, the BJP comes across as wilfully disowning a modern economic vision in tune with fastglobalising India. Tomorrow, if it comes back to power, can it afford to blink at reforms and let the economy go further down the tube? It’ll also serve the nation better by providing constructive opposition rather than fuelling political uncertainty.
