Congress marks anniversary amid graft scandals

NEW DELHI: India’s scandal-rocked Congress party marked its last anniversary in power yesterday before facing voters in 2014, amid dismal poll ratings and a growing clamor for Premier Manmohan Singh to quit.
An opinion poll by a local television made grim reading for the government, with 67 percent of respondents saying it has lost its credibility due to multiple graft scandals and 61 percent saying Singh should exit.
Analysts described the ratings as further evidence of a government in terminal decline, with Rajeev Malik, economist at investment house CLSA, saying the poll read almost like an “obituary.”
Opposition calls have mounted for the resignation of Singh, splashed on a recent magazine cover under the headline “Dr. Dolittle” for overseeing a sharp economic slowdown and turning an apparent blind eye to years of corruption.
“Congress should apologize for its years of misrule,” Sushma Swaraj, leader of the Hindu nationalist opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), told a news conference, adding Singh may be “prime minister but he is no leader.”
Congress was shaken this month by the resignation of two ministers related to new scandals — one over government interference in a police corruption probe and another over a bribe allegation.
The latest controversies paralyzed parliament and derailed government measures to further open up the heavily state-controlled economy.
They came as the government is still reeling from 2010 charges that cut-rate allocation of telecoms spectrum may have cost the exchequer $ 31 billion, and heightened speculation about how long the minority administration can stagger on.
The mandate of Congress, re-elected for a second five-year term in 2009 under the leadership of populist party President Sonia Gandhi, expires next May.
Gandhi is widely regarded as calling the shots in the government and her son Rahul is being lined up by the party to take power.
But Subhash Agrawal, head of think-tank India Focus, said Congress would have its work cut out to stay in office. “The government is in a precarious situation,” he told AFP. Congress is clinging to power with the support of two regional parties but “there may be a time when they decide supporting the government is a liability and they pull the plug,” said political analyst Parsa Venkateshwar Rao.
“No one expects this government to go its full term. The betting is it will call polls between October and February,” Rao said.