Some incidences make us think whether politicians in India are just opportunists or they really want to do something for the citizens. Let us take the example of Ram Vilas Paswan who has started campaigning for BJP candidate just before elections were to be held last month in Bhagalpur on April 24. It is worth mentioning here that Paswan decided to quit NDA just after Gujarat riots in 2002 on the grounds of secularism but returned to join the alliance at the beginning of this year.
Is BJP communal?
Addressing a press conference recently Paswan said the BJP’s projection as a communal party was the propaganda of other parties so that Muslims in the country remain insecure and indirectly referred to anti-Sikh as well as Bhagalpur riots, both of which occurred at the time of Congress rule. As we can easily comprehend, the statement was made keeping in mind the good percentage of Muslim population in the constituency.
This raises questions about Paswan’s political integrity since he spoke against BJP openly a few years back and called them a communal party. Many will also remember Paswan approaching Sonia Gandhi for an alliance in 2004 and 2012. It makes us unsure about ideology Paswan follows.
Politics and opportunism
Similarly, if we look at BJP, the party is now going all barrels in condemning Nitish Kumar and his government for “afsarshahi” as well as corruption. However, how could they do so, since they themselves were part of ruling coalition for the last eight years? They were actually responsible for everything that the government was doing.
Another example of political opportunism is seen in Madhubani in Bihar where JD-U candidate Ghulam Gaus was actually part of RJD as well as opposition leader in legislative council. He has changed flanks from RJD to JD-U but while he was in RJD, he left no stone unturned to criticize JD-U. Now in his poll speeches he is all praise for development initiatives taken by Nitish Kumar’s JD-U. Such opportunism is not confined to Bihar only, the situation is same in other states as well, in Gujarat one of the BJP leaders has become Gujarat’s Congress Chief.
If we go back few decades, we will see that Congress withdrew its support for the United Front on the context that it wanted DMK out of power since in a commission report it was mentioned that DMK was supporting LTTE. However, within seven years, it all changed and both parties were contesting elections together.
We can conclude here by saying that politicians are proving that survival is more important for them than ideologies. It is now for common people to understand this fact and cast their votes properly.
