Humility for any political leader or party is must

Opposition parties have a very important role in democracy. It is their primary duty to identify people’s issues, fight with the government of the day and find solutions. This helps the opposition parties to understand the real issues and aspirations of the people at the ground level and based on their connect with people and their efforts to resolve their problems, once every five years the voters decide who should come to power.

But what is generally happening is that the political parties which swear by people and assure them that they would bring moon to the earth forget the people once in power and behave as if they are the rulers and the people are their servants.

YSRCP which was aggressive before 2019 elections and promised everything to the common man got disconnected with the people and unleashed a reign of terror during its five years period. Apart from this it also introduced certain controversial laws including land titling. It ignored its own party workers. This led the party to fall from 151 seats to 11 seats.

When in ruling, the YSRCP and its leaders never gave any respect to the opposition and on the other hand subjected them to different kind of harassment, both financial and physical attacks, foisting cases against them and in some cases even third degree methods were used.

Normally once decimated, any political party would indulge in introspection and see where they had gone wrong and take corrective steps. But the YSRCP it appears is in no such mood. They have no remorse of splurging public money to destroy the heritage hill called Rushikonda in Visakhapatnam and construct the most luxurious palace with bath tubs costing Rs 33 lakhs each and commodes costing Rs 3 lakhs each. This was supposed the residence cum camp office of the CM if Jaganmohan Reddy was elected for second time.

Can such people be called as pro poor? Does a pro poor leader need to lead such luxurious life? Now after defeat Jagan says, “There are postings on social media saying Jagan is defeated not yet dead, some say Jagan should be beaten to death.” Well such postings should not be encouraged but then how can he forget his own words.

Before 2019 polls during his padayatra, he himself (not social media) said Chandrababu Naidu should be shot dead on the road.” Was that justified? It does not end there, in assembly he tried to make fun of Naidu by saying, “Staring into my eyes, you cannot scare me.” He was also silent when his foul mouthed members resorted to character assassination of Naidu’s wife and Jagan was seen smiling. Leaders memory may be short not voters memory.

The YSRCP one thought would review its performance and take corrective measures. But such hopes are dashed as it is clear that Jagan and his party leaders have not come out of vindictive attitude. He patted his own back saying that their manifesto was everywhere from secretariat to village panchayat office. May be it was there but he was never in secretariat and party was never with people.

He said the party leaders gave list of promises fulfilled by them and asked the sisters of the state to tick which of the benefits they got. They ticked but still they did not vote because of the false promises made by Naidu. This smacks of arrogance not humble attitude which a politician should have.

Humility for any political leader or party is must. Anyone who lacks that would be the sufferer. Do not take voters for granted is the lesson the voters had taught to the political parties in Andhra and the BJP at national level. One should try to become real Jan Neta and not behave like Maharaja.