Bipartisanship absent even in the face of crises

On Friday, the daily fresh COVID-19 cases came within a whisker of 50,000. The day also saw a record 757 deaths. Official data further showed that the daily cases in India have doubled since the beginning of July. In the midst of these grim numbers, two of India’s biggest political parties, instead of showing unity of purpose to jointly face the health emergency, are engaged in a bitter power struggle.

A fight between a young, restless and rebellious Congress leader and an old fogey of the party, fuelled in all probability by the BJP, has held the state to ransom even as the disease continues its relentless march. The political drama is such that politicians, hated figures already, have come to be detested by the public. With each passing day, the depths to which politics in this country sinks is something the entire political class, irrespective of party lines, ought to be ashamed of. 

Gone are the days when BJP stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee, after he was appointed the foreign minister during the Janata Party regime in 1977, ordered Jawaharlal Nehru’s portrait to be put back in the corridors of the Ministry of External Affairs. Overzealous officials had ordered it to be removed after the fall of the Congress government. Gone also are the days when, displaying bipartisanship, the then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao handpicked political opponents such as Vajpayee and the National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah and sent them to Geneva in 1994 to scuttle Pakistan’s plan to sanction India at the UN. 

Today, as the country faces the triple challenge of the pandemic, the COVID-induced economic crisis and an expansionist China, the politicians should have closed ranks to meet the emergencies. They should have assured the public that during times of crises, they can put national interest above political ones. But instead, even as doctors and health workers go about treating patients with dedication and sincerity and soldiers, unmindful of their own lives, guard the borders in sub zero temperatures, all that the netas can do is to throw decorum and constitutional propriety to the wind to meet their petty political ends.