Should Congress leave its Quid Pro Quo strategy?

Amid Gujrat elections, lots of things are said and heard. Sometimes its funny, sometimes offending. Sometimes it makes one think - What exactly is happening here?
Recently two such instances happened, with major contribution coming from Congress. First instance is of calculation error to indicate price rise in BJP's tenure.

Now this could have been a good strategy by Congress, but it fizzled out for a gross calculation error of putting % increase in price by extra 100 points. People made mockery of it and then Rahul Gandhi took a big step of apologizing and accepting the mistake made. But in doing that too, he tried to look down BJP by initiating his tweet with words like "Unlike Narendrabhai, ------"

Was that really necessary? Couldn't he just accept his mistake and not try to bring BJP or relevant things in it.

Second instance just happened yesterday. Manishankar Aiyar called the PM with the word "Neech". In what context, I do not know. Compared to calculation error, this apparently is a bigger mistake made. Narendra Modi, did try to cash in on it immediately in his speech during a Surat rally. Rahul Gandhi once again came up strongly criticizing the tone and language used by Mr. Aiyar. But he again did not missed the chance to point out that BJP also use such foul language.

As such strong words are coming from the to be president of the party, they also had to act and so did they. They immediately suspended his primary membership of the party. This was announced by Mr. Surjewala and here he also tried to show off  by notifying that Congress did take the action on Mr. Aiyar but questioned if Mr. Modi has the courage to do the same. 

I am just wondering what exactly is the Congress trying to achieve through these acts. If they are sincere about these apologies and actions, they should do only that much. Every time by comparing their actions with the BJP's action, they are actually highlighting their actions as meant solely gaining popularity and show BJP as downgraded. This is not going to help in the long run. Congress is a party in crisis. They need to struggle and work hard to get back to original form rather than comparing with strong opponent party. Like BJP at different times pitched the ideas of Hindutva, development model, good governance and worked with these ideas. Same way, Congress need something original and not just comparison.

Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal: What exactly are you trying to do?

Mostly, I avoid writing on politics, but, I have been wondering about few things recently, and  hence, this post. Two people have been in news for last few days and for all wrong reasons. 

One of them is Rahul Gandhi. I am really wondering, what is he trying to do? The way it appears to me, he is trying to play politics out of anything. He has unnecessarily blown up the present issue of National Herald. The court has summoned the Gandhis to appear in court, because the court probably found some concrete reasons to do so. How is this a political vendetta? Why should you answer about it in parliament, when you have been invited in the court to do so? You have been stalling parliament from functioning for all wrong reasons. You did it in monsoon session using Lalitgate and Vyapam ghotala. What happened to that? Did you follow it up? Or as it seems, they were just the reasons to stall the parliament from functioning.  Now, you are doing it again. This time you are using National Herald and some comment made by V. K. Singh, which sounds a lot construed. This is not helping you. People are watching. They can see, you are not helping, but becoming a barrier in the development of the country. Your party is already down to the lowest score ever in Loksabha. Instead of trying to build the party and make big gains, you are trying to get advantage from small ripples, not even waves. With such tactics, I don't see your party having any great future.

Another person is Arvind Kejriwal. Now, he has the charge of Delhi. I can not really say, how he is performing. For that, some one from the place need to be asked. But what I  am wondering are some of his comments and decisions which are coming in to limelight. I was awestruck, when, he increased the salary 4 times for all the parliamentarians. He himself will be earning as per the news, some where around 2.25 lakhs per month. I wonder why? His logic as I read is, with huge salaries, the parliamentarians won't have the urge to fall for corruption. That is arguable.

2-3 days back, he commented about the death of a 6 month old child during slum demolition. The news coming out, is the child died much before the demolition started. So, Arvind Kejriwal is giving comments, even before confirming the information. That is not expected from you. We have seen you talking during Anna's fight against corruption, always with the details in hand and to the point. This new avtar of Kejriwal is surprising us.

Yesterday's comment really made us loose respect for you. You are calling the Prime Minister of India as a coward and psycopath. I am wondering, if you have any basis to prove your allegations, or, have you just started blabbering anything now. It was uncalled comment. It made me wonder, are you the right decision taken by the people of Delhi?

These are two people, who literally have power in their hand and they can actually do wonders with that power. It may not be full power. With lots of restrictions, but still, you have power in hand. Make proper use of that power, and do something constructive, rather than pushing unnecessary words to the media.

and why all such things are directly connected to Narendra Modi? He is a prime minister, who has a responsibility to run a country, which, a prime minister in India, it seems like doing for the first time. We all can see, he is always involved in some or the other activity, promoting India.

Modi vs Rahul: A difference worth noting

Now that the election fever is over, one thing that has stopped or atleast reduced is the comparison between the two leaders of the competing parties, Narendra Modi of BJP Vs Rahul Gandhi of Congress. All the while when during election fever, people/media would come up with any reason that can be used to compare them. Many of the times, these comparisons were biased and made only to highlight one of them compared to another. But this can said that people in general had already weighed the two leaders in their minds and that is the reason, we are seeing Narendra Modi becoming the Prime Minister of India.

One of the criteria that has made place in mind while comparing these two leaders is how did they dealt with the outgoing prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.

There is a lot to talk about the Rahul's treatment towards Dr. Manmohan Singh. Starting with his act of tearing down the ordinance headed by PM in front of media to giving a miss to the party organized farewell dinner to the PM, he pretty much appeared  a bit arrogant. May be, the first act of tearing down the ordinance could be a part of showing him as a strong leader. But, his absence from the dinner, really created a bad impression in people's mind. Worst part, it was discussed widely and many channels even mentioned that he went for 2 day vacation, post election campaign, to Bali. Now that is big.

If these acts are compared with what Narendra Modi did yesterday, it becomes really easy to distinguish the two leaders.

Now, because of late oath ceremony followed by dinner held by President, the regular formality of new PM seeing off old PM from 7 RCR, could not be followed. Narendra Modi, yeasterday, on his first day in PM office, out of busy schedule, took a never walked road and went to meet Dr. Manmohan Singh at his new residence. This visit was no where planned in his schedule. But this humble gesture must really have added few more people in his fan following.

This reminds me of the Indian Cricket Captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni's gesture when he let the outgoing, retiring Sourav Ganguly to lead the team in the last session of his last test match. I think that was one of the best gestures made by any body towards their seniors. It unknowingly added respect towards Dhoni. Yesterday's Modi's visit was a reminder of the similar act and I believe that is one of the significant  signs of a good leader.