The inevitable happened with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh delivering a “Jaanam Samjha Karo” speech to the nation to explain away the fuel price hike.
Before we get to the fuel price hike, it is rather strange that the Prime Minister should face the nation cutting a sorry figure pleading for better understanding. It paints a pathetic image of a surrogate not in control. What this nation needs is a Prime Minister who can demonstrate the courage, conviction and leadership to face the nation and speak the truth before the fact rather than make lame excuses after the fact.
If you cannot prepare the Nation to rally around you on tough decisions in peacetime where you have the luxury to choose the pace and timing of the decision, then how can the Nation trust you to make tough choices when externalities are forced upon this Nation without warning ?
This leads us to the subject of this post. In an election year the primary opposition BJP predictably has seized the political opportunity to take the UPA Government’s mismanagement of the economic by calling it “Economic Terrorism”.
So far so good. But the manner in which the BJP is seizing upon this cause is not inspiring confidence or credibility.
Demanding that the fuel price hike be rolled back, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday said it would hold demonstrations in every district headquarters in the country on Thursday.
The BJP’s lack of homework on the subject is embarassing.
Mr. Rudy, however, did not respond to a question whether the BJP would freeze the prices of petroleum-based products, irrespective of the international crude price, if the party came to power in 2009. Nor did he answer queries on the National Democratic Alliance government?s record in price increase
As the lead editorial in the Indian Express points out there is no correlation between populism and popularity, a profound truth well understood and explained by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in his campaign to win the Assembly elections.
Offstumped Bottomline: If the BJP sees itself as the natural beneficiary of the “aam admi’s” angst over the state of the economy merely by organizing street protests against the fuel price hike then the “aam admi” deserves better.
Unless the BJP has a prescription for ensuring sustainable Energy Security to India its petrol price hike rollback protests lack credibility.
Can you spell out your vision and strategy for securing India’s Energy interests Mr. Advani ?
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Good one
, some times it becomes nauseating at this kind of cheap politics by the opposition parties. The attitude of opposing for the sake of being in opposition without proposing an alternative is no better than that of a street urchin. It doesn’t display maturity. All it displays cheap politics and it might help them win the next elections but will it be able to beat anti-incumbency at the centre and get back to power again in 2014 ? If this kind of attitude and actions persists then, history keeps repeating itself and India and Indians’ dream will remain a dream. If BJP, wants to change the course of world history, it better be more mature and instill more discipline in the party or else for the foreseeable future it will have to share beds with slimy characters like Jayalalitha a.k.a Amma- the honeymoon will be full of KLPDs 
, the exception being if BJP helps her in corruption cases. There will be some gay honeymoons too 
with characters like ADMK, DMK, PMK.
ooops forgot about another imp character – TMC.
So long as central govt in India has a motley ragtag gang of unworthy idiots, India will continue to limp.
It’s only your wishful thinking that BJP is the “right” alternative to Congress.
BJP should plough money into the TATA ISRO Hydrogen and Fuel Cell run vehicles. Yossarin you have not mentioned the aspect of Indian energy security being undermined by over dependence on expensive oil. To save the nation we should kill the oil as a energy product.
The sooner people realize there is no free lunch the better.
“….It’s only your wishful thinking that BJP is the “right” alternative to Congress….”
If “right” alternative pricks ur feelings, letz make it left alternative. Happy now : )…..buddy family business has it’s own limitations. When a national party becomes a family affair, family interests take precedence over national affairs.
Firebrand, even if u put 1000s of crores in R&D on fuel cell etc, will our politicians implement it on a large scale to make it effective? Moreover, will the political parties, including BJP, give away their hold on real estate which would lead to better town planning, better roads etc? Nope. No political party ever talks about bad roads, you can ask any economist the amount of losses due to bad roads, BJP will boast of GQ but implementation was okie dokie, corruption was rampant. consequences – more money and oil per kilometer, wastage of resources.
We still are a long long long way to go (assuming ppl with absolute financial integrity will slowly but surely come to power). I feel improving and encouraging mass transportation is part of the solution. others being reducing wastages (wastage in power transmission between source and destination) power thefts being others, because we have many powered power generating stations.
“…because we have many powered power generating stations…”
correction” because we have many gas powered power generation stations.
I believe that Chidambaram lied to the Nation from mid – 2007, he knew that the inflation was a worrisome factor and he purposely fudged figures till the budget and then took the moral high ground.
On a separate note, I want both Chidamabaram and the BJP to announce their stand on the INDIVIDUAL ASSESSEE DOUBLE TAXTATION ISSUE:
Think about it: We Individual Assesee’s Pay our Income Tax, profession tax which is fine. We also pay Value Added Tax (V.A.T)whereever applicable in addition to the 12.36% Service Tax on Electricity bills, phone bills etc.
NOW ISNT THIS DOUBLE TAXTATION?
I mean an Individual Assessee cannot show this as an neccessary expenditure(which it is) and claim an offset in the annual returns.
But, a corporate or a business can do it.
Now this is unfair, I want especially the BJP to answer this question. If the answer is satisfactory then the BJP must include this in their manifesto and I am telling you, the middle class will vote in hordes and BJP will win comfortably.
Also, for everybody’s knowledge:
Chidambaram hates the V.A.T , why ?
V.A.T is to be equally shared between the state and the centre.So the centre (thinks, how stupid of him) that it loses 50% of revenue which can be CONTROLLED by them.
That is why he introduced these Service Tax.
All, Bloody politics……
Yossarin good question. You have laid down a gauntlet which the BJP must now take up. They should come up with alternatives, answers and solutions to the problems that are threatening to overwhelm this country. The nation is watching and waiting!
@bhanu….
Todays news is full of Advani crying foul over the fuel price hike. This is stupid of him and BJP.
Instead they must work towards freedom of the OIL sector from the government.
OMC’s must be allowed to adopt market oriented policies, allowed to hedge reserves etc.
I dont believe that this paranoia of all political parties in India of ADEQUATE CONTROL over proceedings is getting us anywhere.
I feel let down by this Advani announcement.
Jiggs I feel exaclty the same way. In fact a lot of people do. This is not what is expected of BJP. This should be left to Lalu Yadav and the commie bastards.
it is high time BJP come out with a paper on all major issues energy security,national security etc.
If they claim that they are the right alternative then they have to spell out the alternative plans.As BJP is ruling in many states they should also start implementing this in these states.
Supply of Oil/Petrol is limited…..Mankind has to evolve new ways of energy which do not centre around Oil…
One way of decreasing the usage of Oil is to by increasing it’s price 2-3 times……and along with it giving better public transportation to general public….
NDA did absolutely nothing for correcting the woes in public transport system in India…..while NDA did a good job going about developing the Golden Quadilateral….
Rising price of Oil/Petrol is going to have a downside effect on Indian economy…..
Save Oil…Save Petrol….
I think oil prices were not so much of a concern during NDA’s time. I think they were the first to talk of a stratgeic oil reserve.
I do agree that BJP has to provide more than the reflexive reaction in this case. Maybe they should talk about a plan to deal with this as Yossarin mentioned.
For scoring political points, they should focus on mismanagement of the economy that has resulted in extremely high inflation.
BJP cannot afford to talk against anything Populist. It’s about the survival of its very existance as a political alternative. There are certain things like Caste based quota, justification of inflation, absurdity in Secualrism, which BJP has to blindly follow the Congi’s 5 decades culture.
Winning a game with all the rules set by our enemies will obviously be defeating the very spirit of the game, but winning is very important to evolve into a position to change the basic rules of the game.
Mr Advani should talk about jatropha plantations, biofuel, food security, tata’s plans to build a pressurized air powered car, the IPI pipeline, how he plans to better compete with the chinese for secured future energy supplies etc along with a wink and a nod of the usual populist denouncements of the oil price hike.
Like martian said, once in power, they will be able to change the basic rules of the game, but till then, populism zindabad.
Let’s cut some slack for BJP shall we?
Honestly, the next government shoudl just get out of the business of controlling the gasoline prices period. What BJP can & should do is come up with the tax structure on gasoline products such that the higher the international price goes, the lower the slab of gas tax. As an example, the taxes in India on gasoline products can be set as (say) 20%, for gas price below $50/barrel, 17.5% for the next slab of 50-75$/barrel, 15% for 75-100$/barrel, 12.5% for 100-125$/barrel, 10% for 125-150$/barrel and 7.5% for anything above $150/barrel (just as an example). The point being, collecting lesser additional taxes for every $ of higher price the customer is paying. This way, there is no question of having to respond to the gas prices every time there is a change in price bracket for gas in the international market.
Having said this, just as Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violence could not work against Hitler, the level of maturity we want BJP to show on this issue has not been earned by Congress. Meaning, Congress is NOT worthy of being cut slack for a tough decision (that even BJP would have had to make). We know for a fact that Congress would score political points 2 years from now if BJP is in power and has to raise prices (if prices keep rising), forgetting that it made the same decision 2 years ago under same circumstances.
Let’s not forget that Congress NEVER said ONE word of praise / support for BJP even at the time of Pokharan II or at the end of Kargil war. Congress NEVER cut any slack to BJP after the Kandahar episode (although I did not like the decision of BJP govt either) even when Congress is the one that started the tradition of releasing terrorists to get civilians back. The point is, there is nothing wrong in scoring political points when the other party does not behave in the same mature manner.
Not criticizing Congress for this decision is depriving BJP of a political instrument that Congress itself would not hesitate using against BJP. So, let’s not forget that it take 2 to shake hands. After all, this is politics. If it gets too hot for us, let’s not get in the kitchen. But we cannot stay in the kitchen and complain about heat!
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While talking about the economic policies of the current government, here is a report about the rejoinder that Chidambaram gave to BJP’s accusations of economi terrorism:
FM lists out BJP’s 15 ‘false claims’
http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/jun/06fm.htm
[...] ‘hue and cry’…then some ‘politically motivated agitations’ and then the debate between ‘Economic Terrorism’ OR/AND ‘Logical Terrorism’ pushed these victims and terror attacks out of public domain. Giving [...]