Opinion Yours Incommunicado,UPA-II

Communication has not exactly been a strength of UPA-II. Prime minister Manmohan Singh has,in fact,extolled the virtues of silence. And ‘telecommunication’ might well be a bad word following the spectrum scandal. So should we be surprised by the ‘you-did-not-communicate-with-us’ tragi-comedy enacted by the Congress and the Trinamool over the government’s reforms announcement that caused the latter to quit the UPA?

Sample this. The PM called TMC chief Mamata Banerjee over the weekend to explain the rationale of the reforms but could not get through to her. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi too tried to speak to Banerjee Tuesday night but was not successful. The government also “left the message” that they wanted to speak to her. But she just isn’t available. A TMC minister claims Banerjee,on the other hand,sent a SMS to Gandhi last Friday opposing the reforms. The SMS is supposed to have landed on the phone of a pradesh Congress secretary,whoever he or she is. The leader did not answer and the TMC assumed Gandhi wasn’t responding. Gandhi’s office then asked Railway Minister Mukul Roy for a number on which Banerjee could be reached. He gave one but Banerjee still remained unreachable despite several attempts. Or so we are told.

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This narrative shared with the media by both sides raises several basic questions. How does the UPA,voted to govern the world’s largest democracy and Asia’s third largest economy,communicate internally? Are leaders completely dependent on mobile phones,notwithstanding the poor service? Are they on 2G or 3G networks? What happens when a mobile is switched off or is out of coverage area? Have landline phones been shunned? Don’t the UPA’s mostly pre-mobile era leaders remember hotlines? Or fax,telex,telegram? Or did they try Twitter and Facebook,since the PMO is on the former and Banerjee on the latter?

The point is,much of this narrative sounds highly apocryphal and makes for sad reading. What if this was not Banerjee but a general leading the troops to war or the leader of a neighbouring country seeking to resolve a conflict? Communication breakdown is never a good excuse to impose a crisis on the country. The UPA may do well to remember this if it has to depend on similar volatile allies to last its full term.

yp.rajesh@expressindia.com