Image Courtesy: newsx thehansindia
Defending by blame
There is a new trend that has surfaced in the political discourse of India, which is asphyxiating the quality and substance of political debate in the country. The recent slugfest of the principal parties, the ruling BJP and the Congress over letting Vijay Mallya leave the country brings to fore again the politics of blame game to muzzle any sensible argument and debate to solve the issue. The opposition parties had blamed the government of letting Mallya leave the country to which Jaitley hit back by saying “What about Quattrocchi?”. The ruling party and the opposition party tend to rightly point out mistakes of each other to hold them accountable. But too often they end up taking solace and hiding behind the mistakes and sins of each other. The ruling government could certainly do better to responding with facts and reasons on the questions raised by the opposition parties. That would serve the purpose of keeping people informed with the right information.
Let us go back to the basics
We are a democracy where the primary role of the opposition party is to question and criticize the ruling dispensation while it is a primary responsibility of the ruling government to respond to the civil criticism with accurate answers. Both the ruling government and the opposition together should nurture a healthy environment for informed debate that will inform and empower all citizens. That is a collective responsibility they have to shoulder to mould the collective conscience of the society for the better. All political parties should work on a common code of conduct that nurtures healthy debates. The politics of blame game and disruption should be abandoned for the sake of our democracy. All political parties should stop pandering to their vote base along and speak for the entire population.
Supporters and cadres of political parties are guilty too
Too often political parties are whipping up their cadres, only for different private citizens to enter into a slugfest on social media while the political class sits together for dinner and wine.
The cadres and supporters of political parties should stop defending their political parties, they should realise they are not infallible, they do mistakes and they commit errors in judgement. Instead of defending the supporters and cadres of any political parties should ask the party they support to come clean on any allegations surrounding their party leader or the party itself.
The Logical Indian appeals the political parties to stop making a mockery of the media space, the privilege of being a parliamentarian by indulging in blame games without answering the questions raised by people. We also appeal to the supporters of different political parties to not to vehemently support their parties and create a wedge among the citizens on political lines, instead listen each other and question the party you had voted for. Questioning and supporting the party can co-exist and hence do not hesitate to question your party.
