– 45 posts will be filled through lateral entry to add expertise to the system and promote competition – Modi Government
– Through this recruitment, the government is going to appoint people associated with RSS to the key posts of UPSC through the backdoor. Lateral entry is an attack on the rights of Dalits, OBCs and Adivasis – Rahul Gandhi, Leader of Opposition
– This kind of system has been in place since Nehru’s time, even during the UPA regime, the system of lateral entry was proposed and arranged by the Reforms Commission, now why is the opposition creating a ruckus over it – Ashwini Vaishnav, Union Minister
This is not the first example. For the last few days, it has been happening continuously that the government has to give clarifications about some of its steps, has to take steps back. It has to go on the backfoot. Frustration is visible. BJP is also not able to raise any matter of its government in a very aggressive manner. From media to social media, the government is seen on the backfoot in a way. Where has that strong hold of the Modi government or BJP gone, due to which it was able to keep the opposition silent? Where has that strong communication art gone, due to which people used to get convinced of Modi? Where is that public dialogue of well-educated leaders in the RSS school, due to which only and only Modi..Modi…NaMo…NaMo…resonated everywhere! Why has a strong government suddenly started looking so helpless…what is the reason for this?
So let’s start from the beginning… What happened was that the government issued an advertisement for lateral entry for 45 posts of Joint Secretary, Director or Deputy Secretary. This created a ruckus. Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi cornered the government on this issue. He said that through this recruitment, the government is going to appoint people associated with RSS to the key posts of UPSC through the backdoor. Lateral entry is an attack on Dalits, OBCs and tribals. This destructive version of BJP’s Ram Rajya wants to destroy the Constitution and snatch reservation from the backward classes. The interests of the reserved classes are being killed. Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav also came to support them. Minister Chirag Paswan, who is part of the government, also had to speak on this issue that this should not happen.
When the opposition became aggressive, the government also became active…started counterattacking. It started trying to explain to the public that this system is the gift of the opposition. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said that it was the UPA government that brought the concept of lateral entry. The second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) was brought in 2005 during the UPA government. This commission was headed by Veerappa Moily. During the tenure of the UPA government, the commission had suggested that experts should be appointed to those posts where special knowledge is needed. NDA said that the government has adopted a transparent method to implement the recommendations of the commission. Then why the uproar?
But it is being seen that the government is not able to raise this issue very effectively. Whereas this was not the case earlier. Modi’s last two governments used to strongly counterattack the opposition, especially Rahul Gandhi. The opposition, including the Congress, found itself incapable of raising any issue at a big level. Now what has happened suddenly that the opposition is proving successful in pushing the government and BJP on the backfoot by raising this issue in a very strong manner. Whereas the irony is that in reality the system of lateral entry came to the fore through the Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) formed in 2005 during the UPA government. Even much before this commission, the Congress governments had made a lot of appointments of experts of some field. The biggest example of this was Manmohan Singh, who was brought as a lateral entry in 1971 as an economic advisor in the then Ministry of Foreign Trade during Indira Raj, later he also became the Finance Minister and Prime Minister. Other prominent people include technocrats Sam Pitroda and V. Krishnamurthy, economists Bimal Jalan, Kaushik Basu, Arvind Virmani, Raghuram Rajan and Ahluwalia, RG Patel, RV Shahi. Even Infosys’ Nandan Nilekani was made the chairman of Aadhaar-linked UIDAI.
Despite so much ammunition against Congress, where is the government failing? Because the echo is not being talked about…
From Nehru to Samay to Manmohan government, people were brought in through lateral entry. Even the appointment of experts from different fields in the National Advisory Council during the UPA government falls in this category. Despite having so much inflammable material against the Congress, why was the government not able to put it on the back foot? If seen, the big reason behind this is – line loss in communication… Earlier, the communication of the government and the BJP used to flow in a very systematic way from top to bottom. Big statements were echoed in a tremendous way. If PM Modi used to raise any issue or attack any opposition leader, then the entire machinery of the BJP and the big leaders used to raise that statement or issue from top to bottom. There was a lot of clarity factually. Here, the RSS workers used to make a big contribution in this direction. On the contrary, the opposition neither had such a systematic cadre to answer any issue. Nor did it have such a powerful machinery. There was a separate problem of communication clarity. Now if something is said by the government, it does not echo down very effectively. A kind of indifference is visible among the leaders and workers. A lot of line loss is being seen. The message is not reaching down. Public opinion does not seem to be forming. The opposition is taking the issue by storm. And the opposition parties are succeeding in presenting their views in a more effective manner.
Earlier, big and popular leaders of BJP like Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Shivraj Singh, Rajnath Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Raman Singh, Anurag Thakur, Prakash Javadekar did not leave any scope for the opposition by giving continuous statements on any issue. They had recognition and credibility in the whole country. Now many such leaders in BJP are on the margins or have disappeared from the scene. Or their activism is not that kind. They have been replaced by leaders like Ashwini Vaishnav, S. Jaishankar, Hardeep Singh Puri. These leaders are experts in the administrative system. But they do not have a mass base. Neither do they have that kind of credibility among the public. Their language of communication is also very much official. Whereas to convey any issue to the common people, the language of the common man, very desi examples, everything from style to expression seems lost. Public communication seems scattered. The way BJP leaders used to connect with the people earlier, now there is a huge lack of it.
For some time now, the Modi government has been following the trend of blaming Nehru for almost every problem. In many initial cases, this trick was seen working. It was assumed that Nehru’s policies are at the root of every major problem in the country. At that time, facts were also seen in support. But later, the wolf came… the wolf came… this was said so many times that the matter became a mere joke. Slowly, it became ineffective. But the government and its ministers or big leaders did not pay attention to this in time and continued the campaign of blaming Nehru. This overdose of Nehru has now started backfiring. But BJP leaders are finding themselves unable to understand this. People believe that if you have been running the government for the last one decade, then now the responsibility for any problem cannot be put on anyone else. No one else can be held responsible. You will have to look within yourself. You will have to take responsibility for your shortcomings and weaknesses. The public is ready to forgive but is probably not ready to listen to excuses to avoid accountability. So in the echo of Nehru-Nehru-Nehru, perhaps the party or the government seems to be ignoring even simple things like introspection.
The biggest thing in favour of BJP or Modi government is that they have a good history of bouncing back. They have no equal in identifying the shortcomings and correcting them immediately. We can only hope that this will happen soon…otherwise they have the example of Congress party or their governments which have repeated the same mistakes in the past which the government or BJP is seen doing today.
The country has already seen the period when the Sangh and BJP had countered the caste card with Mandal vs Kamandal but this battle is a long one. It remains to be seen what counter the government and the BJP organization find for the opposition’s weapon of reservation and what the public gets in return?
Source (PTI) (NDTV) (HINDUSTANTIMES)