Civil Society Forum BBMP manifesto

After the formalities of welcoming, introducing of the guests etc, the meeting started of with the presentation by Ms Kathyayini Chamaraj. Hers was more or less the same as she has been making for years together, steeped in 'genuine' Socialism, with demands for all kinds of subsidies for all kinds of services, all of which have to be provided by the government. The traditional politicians, from the so-called main-stream parties, have been saying yes-yes to all of them (very much like all of the representatives of the Congress, JDS and BJP did at the meet too), but in essence practising "pseudo-Socialism", which quite suited their respective individual and collective agenda's perfectly (do listen to Dr J P Narayan's latest talk on the subject @ https://fb.watch/dG-myP-nE8/ ). This had quite ruined the country, and if not for the opening up of the economy to the private sector by the Narasimha Rao/ Manmohan Singh combo, we would never have reached the status of being the fifth largest economy in the world that we are today.

 

The unfortunate part is that, even as the world had largely begun to recognise that the government, and its agencies, are the most inefficient of service providers (as also manufacturers/ suppliers of goods), the Socialists refused to accept that, and they in turn played right into the hands of the traditional politico's.  

 

The NaMoSarkar, in particular, came to power with the promise of the much lauded "less govt; more governance" slogan, but which remained more or less a slogan, except for what generally was seen as palming of of critical assets to crony capitalists, which in turn made the stance of the Socialists even more rigid. 

 

Meanwhile, there has been the promising development of a highly successful and most equitable Delhi power supply PPP model (check here), which can readily provide a template for all of existing and future enterprises, where the government needs to have a presence. Strangely, however, even though it has been in existence from almost two decades, and improving year after year, very few governments have chosen to adopt it, even as countries like Nigeria have already taken the leap of faith and adopted it successfully. Very recently, however, Odisha has begun moving along the direction too. 

 

As such, the talks by the representatives of Congress and BJP were of little consequence, as far as I was concerened. Sri C M Ibrahim (JDS)'s talk however was noteworthy more for its Kannada eloquence, laced with Sanskrit sloka's, than the actual content. But, it needs to be added that he made it a point to look in the direction of Sri Prithvi Reddy, and acknowledge the good work being done by the AAP govt in Delhi in the field of govt schools.

 

The talks by AAP's Sri Prithvi Reddy and BNP's Sri Srikanth Narasimhan were excellent, and I would not hesitate to say that they hold the promise for the future of Bengaluru as also Karnataka. One hopes they work to their respective strengths, and not at cross purposes.