This refers to A K Bhattacharya’s column “Where are the Congress leaders?” (August 24). The strategy of fielding party spokespersons Manish Tewari and Rashid Alvi and lawyers-turned-politicians Kapil Sibal and P Chidambaram to tackle Anna Hazare and his movement proved to be disastrous for the Congress. It was only on the seventh day of Hazare’s fast that the government felt the need for moving towards a resolution to the crisis because contrary to the assumption that the agitation will die down, support to Hazare grew by leaps and bounds.
NDA’s working chairman L K Advani demanded that prime minister should quit and seek a fresh mandate. In established democracies like the UK or the US not only the opposition, but the people also would have asked for fresh elections in such a situation.
Team Anna is right in saying their aim is not to change the government but the system. With dishonest people and criminals free to contest elections with a guaranteed free run of five years, elections would continue to deliver the same kind of parliamentarians and corrupt governments that we are getting. Three major amendments are needed in the Representation of the People Act before the next general elections: barring people charge-sheeted for a punishable crime from contesting elections, NOA (none of the above) option in EVMs and ballot papers for voters who don’t want to vote for any of the candidates and the “right to recall” to voters if they are dissatisfied with the performance of their elected representative.
M C Joshi, Lucknow
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