Whips and Democracy

I am confused by the math of all Political parties. I read in many places that if not for the defections from the opposition the numbers would have been 261 for and 277 against. And they seem to count only defections from BJP, BJD,TDP etc., Why arent they counting defections from SP and Congress. Werent there Congress and SP MPs who said they wont vote for the government. And when Congress got JMM support it was losing Political morality and compromising by giving ministry to an accused. When BJP tried for the same support, by offering CM post they were moral. When CPI-M spoke to Ajit Singh and Mayawati to Deve Gowda they were not making any offers of seats or alliances or exchanges in kind. When Congress spoke to them they offered stuff which means the Trust vote was tainted.

Wasnt the days preceding the trust vote a clear case of market forces buying and losing stocks which involved exchanges of money, offer or any thing in kind. No party can say they acted according to a high moral conscience and the rest were immoral. Everyone was equally immoral and the Congress-SP alliance ended up more succesful.

When people write if MPs have voted according to whips, some of these whips as in the case of JD-S, RLD and JMM were bought themselves. SAD did not issue a whip and Shiv Sena as a party favored the deal. So if the trust vote was a test of the Nuclear deal on the floor of the house, even with whips the Union Government should have sailed through. But unluckily it was not. It was a question of trust in the government and that is when buying and stcking became necessary on both sides.

Coming back again to whips, how can we say whips are democratic. The idea that an MPs seat belongs to the party and not to himself. Asking them to toe the party line is one thing, but asking them to attend at all costs, even risking life as in the case of some BJP MPs is strange. If their conscience is against the vote, the only thing they can do is resign, not abstain or defy the whip. So there is no room for individual conscience. Can we say for sure every MP seat belongs to the party, if in the place of Yerran Naidu TDP had someone else contesting and Yerran Naidu stood against them, may be Yerran Naidu would have won. When the people vote we dont know for sure how many votes are for the person and how many are for the party. They both go hand in hand finally in the numbers. So just having the party own the person and have no right for his own moral conscience and what is electorate feels is blatant disregard for democracy and a case of One-Dimensioanl thinking. In that case I feel abstaining should be an option for the MPs if not voting against the party line.

If we do go by those standards and say every MP voting/abstaining according to his conscience would the government have won the trust motion. No one knows the answer to this. Hence Speaking about "what would have been if" is something that can never be accurate. The parties which speak so much about democracy should accept the verdict and heed to the Parliament the way it sounded. There is no point in debating the cash for vote scam as everyone knows our MPs are saleable. They even took money to raise questions in the question hour. So the sudden talk of morality is surprising. It ultimately comes down to "Are you able to keep your flock with you, if not it is entirely your fault in giving seats to those who might not be trustworthy for you". There is no point in talking the high moral grounds when no one has any.

Terror Wave!!!

In 2 days there have been 2 attacks. And they were both well correlated and bombs just went off one after thr other that news sites had to keep updating the numbers. Being in the US, everyday I am waking up afraid if something bad could have happened to someone I know. Cause things are getting so common.

The refrain from the PM and CPI-M that "We need to maintain communal harmony" was strange. CPI-M says blasts happened in both Hindu and Muslim areas. Who asked about it. These blasts were to terrorize the governments, not to kill people. 17 blasts killing 18 people is not targetting the masses Hindu or Muslim. So it can happen in any area as long as the governments cannot stop it. So when these pseudo-secularists try to say "Dont link Muslims to it" it seems ridiculous. Coz A Indian Mujhaideen faction has already taken responsibility for the blasts saying it is targeting the Anti-Islam, orto say BJP in this case.

It was clearly terrorism by a Muslim group. Its not that all muslims are terrorists, but jehad in the name of islam has been the driver of terror in most cases. So we should try to sort this menace out and ban such organizations and constantly monitor their sinister activities. But what the Central Government is practising is a clear case of Appeasement. Allow them to grow, dont look at them, and then we will have them grow to an extent like Hitler did when we would cry out loud to the entire world asking for help. But even then we would maintain that it is the sinister campaign of Pak based terror groups with no links to Indian Muslims a powerful vote base for the pseudo-secularists.

The funniset part in the Home Ministry statement everytime is the state government did not act on intelligence. And they also said if the Gujarat Government needs any help, if they ask we will provide. The Central government tries to wash off any responsibility to the nation when it happens in Jaipur or Ahmedabad. But if it happens in Hyderabad, then it is sudden and unexpected that the state government couldnt react and the Centre would automatically provide all help. Oops, talk of Bipartisanship, this is pushing the divide and exposing the nation beyond our imagination.