The Halcyon days of the BJP are long past. The party today is facing headwinds as the Opposition gathers might and key policy gambles of the government are showing no sign of paying expected dividends. Voices of dissent from within are threatening to weaken the government further even as it makes unconvincing attempts to pick up the threads of development.
The reshuffle it effected in Cabinet portfolios and the induction of new ministers have done little to apply brakes on the downward spiral the government is evidently settling on. The stampede on the foot overbridge connecting Elphinstone Road and Parel suburban stations in Mumbai that left 23 dead is yet another blow to the railways even as it licks its wounds from the mauling of a spate of derailments in quick succession.
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, who replaced Suresh Prabhu early September, has his hands full and expectations from him have been quite high. He hit the ground running at least to show that change was in the offing. But it is doubtful whether he will be able to sustain the momentum if incidents such as these continue.
The energy and vigour of the government’s gambit as a force against corruption appears to have drained out. Doubt appears to have crept into every facet of its operations. Added to it, the government is unable to provide adequate relief to the common man despite its many measures, including the GST.
Many businesses across the country have the foggiest idea about the new taxation regime and the confusion is yet to be cleared. By the time things get back in order, the government could have a heap of litigation and huge repayments to tackle.
Recently the reply given to a Right to Information (RTI) applicant showed that the government had collected Rs2.67 lakh crore in excise, customs and import duties on petroleum products in 2016-2017. It was a threefold increase from revenues in 2012-13.
The data showed that revenue earned from the sale of petrol alone in 2012-13 was Rs23,710 crore, while it rose to Rs66,318 crore in 2016-17. The data has also shown that diesel, the fuel that is responsible to a large extent for the price of vegetables and essential commodities in the market, is earning the government higher revenue than petrol. More interestingly, the revenue diesel fetched the government in 2016-17 was six times higher than what it gave it in 2012-13.
The present government was voted to power by a nation tired of empty promises and scams of mammoth proportions. The circumstances that are emerging at present threaten to play havoc with the incumbent government, too, and it may not be far from being plagued by scams of its own.
It would be interesting to watch whether the government chooses to bow to pressures from within and without and ignores the direction it needs to follow. The only hope it may have for now is the absence of an acceptable replacement.
The interest Rahul Gandhi attracted since his address at University of California, Berkeley, may not remain a flash in the pan if the government bumbles along on propaganda-powered governance. Fine words (even if they are ‘words from the heart’) butter no parsnips.
