Austerity Drive

Guys,

I am sure many of you would have watched the program on Times Now on the government's austerity drive. For the first time in my life I saw people across party lines come together. I forgot the person from CPM, Manish Tewari from the Congress and Rudy Pratap from the BJP (who incidentally i had a lot of respect for)

All of them differed with Arnab and started pounding him for tainting MP's. Quite frankly do they have anything left to be tainted. From cash for votes to distributing money for votes to tying up with any party and every party, quite frankly the common Indian man has very little equity left with these bunch of wannabe's.

What is wrong in the press questioning them on spending too much? If you guys are paid by the tax payers of this country, then you are accountable to the people as well. The same party that talks about corporate houses and the need to make them more and more transparent has its spokesperson come on TV and say I will travel in cargo if my party lets me to :) Guess it goes without saying that the cargo he is talking about should be fitted with an AC, home theatre and so on.

Like how we have a system of Annual General Meeting, we should have an annual system of the council of ministers visiting each state capital once a year for a meeting with the people who pay them. This should not be stage managed and managed by an independent committee of eminent personalities with credibility.

These 3 parties could not get together to have a single face when we were being attacked by terrorists, they could never agree on ways to get out of recessionary times and can never agree on pretty much anything, but when it came to a simple question of why should they travel by business class, they got together and attacked the others. I am appalled and dismayed after that discussion on TV. If a corporate leader had spoken to aggressively and defensively on TV, I am pretty sure, he would have been fired or brought down heavily. But, these guys with important positions can just about get away with anything. And that is purely because we don't care as citizens to demand replies/action from them....

Just a quick ending comment from me- I really do think our council of ministers should travel by business or first class. Its a reflection of the country's prestige and values when they travel abroad. They could cut costs in a lot of ways, but we have got the methods totally wrong. Why dont you get a Consultant to review the cost patterns and come up with a clear recommendation that is followed instead of just going out and saying dont travel business. Is that the only expense that is un-called for? What about the parties? What about the unwanted get togethers for their leaders to self boast, what about the people who are over-staying in quarters? What about the statues of Madamji? The list never ends.....

I am using my pen to openly condemn the audacity and defensive attitude shown by the spokespersons of the so-called leading parties of our nation. Such defensive people can never listen or do any good for our country for they care about which class they travel in, than which classes of our society went to bed last night without a meal...