To prop up its tottering government, the Congress has now compounded its sin by stitching up a brazenly opportunistic alliance with the Samajwadi Party. Public memory is not so short as to forget what leaders of the Congress and Samajwadi Party said about each other during the assembly elections in UP last year. Hence, the moral and political legitimacy of the nuclear deal has been further eroded by what is being talked about as ?the deal behind the deal? between the two parties.
There is widespread suspicion and speculation that something scandalous has suddenly sweetened the historically bitter relations between the Congress and Samajwadi Party. I demand that Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh come clean on this issue by assuring the nation that that there has been no quid pro quo, that his government is not misusing institutions to bail out certain individuals in cases of economic offences and financial irregularities.
The unholy attempts of the Congress party to somehow ensure survival of its government?whether the government will actually survive or not is another matter?are such that they breed cynicism about politics in the minds of ordinary people. What people want to see in government is honesty, transparency, accountability and commitment to democratic values. In contrast, what they are seeing today is dishonesty, opaqueness, politics of manipulations and machinations, corruption and scandals.
This degeneration in India'spolitical and governance culture is detrimental to our democracy. Once it sets in at the top, it begins to infect the functioning of democratic institutions at all levels, including the bureaucracy, criminal justice system, regulatory authorities, and economic organisations. It also affects citizens? own conduct in society. My party is determined to halt and reverse this degeneration.
