Commitment vs Delivery

Commitment vs Delivery

The current government committed to a whole lot of things when they were fighting the elections- they fought it pretty hard against an already dead snake. They beat them to death and came to power, my belief was in any case BJP would have come to govern with or without Modi as 10 years of UPA was too much for us to take. We were perturbed by a lot of scams and scandals that the anger in us was clearly highlighted during the elections’14.

But after BJP took charge i was expecting a lot from the government that would benefit the selfish tax payer (me!).  So, when i started commenting people around me said, “ Boss, you need to give time” Agreed, it wasn’t fair from my part to expect miracles to happen when one never expected anything from UPA for the past 10 years. We witnessed a lot of high end drama as the Prime Minister did a big “Sashtaanga Namaskaram” when he entered the Parliament and all of us said, “What a man” and we believed that he is out there to change the course of our country. Unfortunate that we weren’t aware that the GDP, Industrial growth, Inflation, Petrol Prices etc., were under control with the UPA govt. As a smart strategy the BJP never went on overboard to criticise Dr.Singh, PC, Sonia, Jayram Ramesh, instead they consistently made Rahul the scape goat and continued with their assault. This improved the image of the BJP and its leaders thereby dented the congress. The common man was made to believe that what BJP is delivering needs to be cherished. Prime Minister continued his foreign trips and made all of us believe that the relationships are improving with all other countries in the world except for China, Srilanka and Pakistan (which actually matters).

PM launched demonetisation and said all the black money will come to the roads, but unfortunately all of us came to the roads and stood in the queue to withdraw our own money. The banks kept strict stipulations that we cannot withdraw beyond a certain amount, but we all quietly adhered thinking that the black money holders are going to come to the roads. This is where we need to appreciate ourselves that when we believe, we believe. The Government took almost 8 months to give us an account of what was collected(99%). There is no clarity,

on what was the cost of this whole exercise called “Demonetisation”,

on what happened to those people who died standing in queues,

on those who lost jobs and

many who lost their businesses.

 Forget about the time we all spent discussing about this damn demonetisation.

Can you remember any issue that has affected us the most that we were discussing about the government between 2004 to 2014?

Look at some statistics,

The crude prices have comedown drastically while our fuel and cooking gas prices only look north.

The country’s GDP is at an all time low since 2006.

GST is all set to screw small and medium size businesses as they will have to only keep filing GST returns (40 times in a year).

The Swaach Bharat only added in the form of taxes and the dirt still exists. The amount of money spent on communicating the program runs into 100s of crores. The Make in India initiative remains to be a nice jargon and no great movement beyond Adani and Ambani. The news channels have surprisingly sounding pro government.

But the Central Govt is very busy preparing for election after election across the country and their only agenda is “Congress mukht Bharat”.

Friends, we need prosperity and not eradication of a party that doesn’t have power in any case.

Kamal as a Politician!

Kamal as a Politician!

Why not?    Is the first reaction.

Does he have the experience? Will he handle, Is he eligible, numerous such apprehensions. My submission is, the people  running the show according to me are neither eligible nor qualified. If we have accepted them and they are at the helm of affairs for many many years and giving (mis)governance to us,  why not Kamal? The way he has stepped in makes his intentions clear.

During the 80s, he defined clearly that his fan clubs be made into welfare organisations and need to take up social activities. They were known for their blood donation camps, organ donation camp, eye donation etc.,Unfortunately, Kamal didn’t have the huge mass that Rajnikanth possessed. The choice of movies and characters that Kamal chose never indicated his preference towards becoming a leader or a do-gooder.  He focussed on his talents to be a film maker and was trying his luck with all departments of movie making. The amount of criticism he used to receive from within the industry was enormous. The beauty of Kamal was he never would get disturbed and continued with his job.

Kamal was known for his confused speeches and interviews, i suppose he always wanted to portray himself as an intellectual amidst the crowd. But what has been witnessed post his “Viswaroopam” struggle was a lot of clarity in his communication. He started speaking less but with lot of substance. He was bold enough to criticise the Government directly for its inefficiency during the Chennai Floods. When the govt. machinery came down severly on him by disconnecting power and water supply to his Alwarpet home. He was cool enough in handling the situation by not reacting to it.

It was a cinematic situation where Kamal was dragged into the political scene by some immature politicians reverting to silly remarks. Kamal used the “Bigg Boss” opportunity in the right manner to revert back. His progressive thoughts and comments were received well across a lot of social groups. This has given him a lot of confidence and he too has transformed a lot as a presenter. He did make some strong point of views and overtly shared a lot of anti government statements both in twitter and through Television.

The question to ponder upon is, Can thoughts be converted into action?. Does he have the ability to convert support into a Vote. In Politics, especially during the process of election it is this skill that is displayed effectively by seasoned politicians to garner votes. The machinery deployed, the grassroot’s commitment and discipline to work for their leader makes a big difference in winning and losing. Our politicians have mastered this art over a period and clearly dominate the scene.

The methodology they adopt in selecting the village secretary to district secretaries to regional secretaries largely depends on the caste/communities they belong. Can Kamal enter into a game like this? Will he succeed? The way the monies are spent on communication are definitely beyond what the Election commission prescribes, all parties have their way in executing their plans without falling into EC’s gambit. Can Kamal pull these off? Every Political outfit has a team of top rung leaders who move around the party high command. These leaders generally exhibit skills such as mobilising crowds, charting out campaign plans, handling communities and castes, mobilising finance, handling press, holding internal meetings and so on. Can Kamal make successful identification of these characters? Because this will reflect a lot on the party that he intends to start. Another critical thing that Kamal and his family in whole needs to be prepared as there will be lot of personal mudslinging which will hit really hard. Not only Kamal will be on the radar, even his children and wife and girl friends will face enough and more from the media. An unbiased splitting of personal and public life should be undertaken with lots of care.

Summing it all, Kamal as an individual has the charisma, character, brand image and fan following. The aspect that he needs to work on is developing an organisational structure and a mechanism to reach out to the grassroots. He has the physical strength to be a leader for masses, but he needs to take care of the last mile connect. Before he begins Kamal needs to travel the length and breadth of TN and should reach out to his loyalists, identify local issues, identify local leaders and so on. If he successfully programmes all these then there is no stopping of Kamal as a politician!