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Students also highlight that reservation is dividing society, making people more aware of their castes, and making people feel inferior. In fact, one study by a Harvard scholar cited in The Pioneer said that students who performed incognito did as well as other students but their performance dropped significantly when they understood that the tester knew their caste.
The Congress itself is drunk in its own brew of quota-poison. While Singh has lately joined the bandwagon, his peer Science & Technology Minister Kapil Sibal has publicly opposed it. Even if it goes through, it is unlikely that the Congress will benefit from this opportunistic parochial proposal, as it has no backward class leader in its ranks. In a caste-driven political makeup of India, this translates that the largest beneficiary will be narrow caste-based parties such as Samajwadi Party (SP), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and Bahujan Samajwadi Party. As a corollary, such a policy will drive so-called upper-caste votes to the Bharatiya Janata Party making Congress the net-loser.
So, what is Singh’s game plan? Why is he suggesting this hair-brained idea that will not benefit his own party, inconvenience the Government, create national instability, arrest economic progress, and create capital flight? Analysts believe that Singh is tired of eternally being the Prime-Minister-in-waiting and is creating an inconvenient situation to a weak Prime Minister at an inopportune time so he can then gallop in be viewed as a savior. In short, he is jockeying himself as a consensus candidate that is acceptable to the three props to the Government.
Political analysts say that the communist coalition, the North Indian opportunistic parties such as RJD and SP, and the South Indian grouping such as DMK, TMC, etc, are the three props that support the minority Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government. All of them oppose the Prime Minister’s forward-looking economic and foreign policies, as they do not get them access to money or votes. Therefore, there is an intense disaffection with the PM. The only options open to the UPA is to dissolve itself and go for national elections which will definitely bring the BJP to power or compromise internally to facilitate the continuing rot. Since the first option is not beneficial, the second option (tested many times before) will be exercised. Therefore, just like inefficient Prime Ministers such as V.P. Singh, Chandrasekhar, and Deve Gowda were selected because of their perceived neutrality and as a “consensus candidate” the UPA will be looking for yet another mediocre personality to drive the country into the ground.
Analysts say that Singh is positioning himself as such a candidate. They say that his not-so-strong opinions, views, or vision on any major issues, pandering to the reservation plank, and his “secular” credentials are his strong points, which will propel him to power.
With all the developments of a democratic coup in progress, it would be interesting to see how Prime Minister and his political boss Sonia Gandhi’s move.
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