JokeRulers

The way the ruling party and Government has handled Anna Hazare's agitation makes then look like a pack of jokers. What explains government actions that seem to make a political strategist out of a novice called Anna? Consider the series of blunders on this one single issue of Anna's agitation:

• What was essentially a political problem was turned into a law-and-order problem. The Prime Minister first washes off his hand off the matter by not entertaining Anna's request and by putting the restrictions on his protest. As Arun Jaitley said in Parliament, the government seemed to want to decide how many people should protest against it, where they should protest, when they should protest, what kind of vehicles they could get in order to protest against itself! Having already seen the kind of popular support Anna was able to mobilize earlier this year, the government seemed to suffering from amnesia.
• Finally, it arrests Anna even before he starts his protest. Within a few hours the government is running helter-skelter to get the man out of jail seeing the mass mobilization. Anna turns out to be smarter than Baba Ramdev and now refuses to walk out of jail him being given unconditional right to protest? So now the government can't get a prisoner out of its own jail! How is that for political acumen and planning?
• The appointed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh then hides behind bureaucrats and the police, as he always does, and says that they were alone responsible for all decisions taken. That is like the desperate lame excuse of a child caught doing something he was prohibited from.
• The Congress dirty tricks department jumps into business. The rabble-rousing Manish Tewari calls Anna corrupt and his team of activists "armchair fascists, overground Maoists, closet anarchists..." and makes things difficult for the party. Why was Team Anna then included in the drafting panel earlier? It of course needed the genius of Prince Charming to dissuade the party from such below-the-belt attacks. The appointed PM is no less guilty and he uses the age old Congress 'foreign hand' trick saying, "there are many forces that would not like to see India realize its true place in the Comity of Nations. We must not play into their hands". Taking the cue, Rashid Alvi for his fifteen minutes of fame claims as the party's official line, "It needs to be considered whether there is any power which is supporting this movement, which wants to destabilize not only the government but the country". With such balderdash coming from within, why does the Congress party need any opponents? Did it seriously expect people to fall for it?
• The PM then tries to cast the issue as civil society vs the Parliament through an inept performance in the Parliament, rightly called by Arun Jaitley as "a list and resume of events". After having taking the Opposition for granted so long, this falls flat too as his arguments are destroyed in Parliament.
• After all this, the government is left with no option but to surrender to Anna and relax virtually each of the restrictions imposed. But here too it tried to be too clever by half, and proposed a virtually useless Ramlila Ground as the venue. Anna's team ofcourse outsmarted them, as Anna refused to step out of jail till the venue was ready to his satisfaction. And guess who is in charge of preparing the ground? The BJP-led Municipal Corporation of Delhi! Another self-goal ??

With so many seasoned politicians, how could the government be so stupid, so clueless? The truth is the government has demonstrated what many have been claiming for some time now - that this government is inept, not in control, does not know what its different wings are doing, controlled by a kitchen cabinet that may probably excel better at culinary skills. It is just waiting for its saviour - but is the situation now beyond redemption after a year of battering?