OPINION

Delhi, being the capital of India, is one of the fastest growing cities, which has witnessed unprecedented growth of both human and vehicular population over the years. Besides, Delhi being the administrative capital of the country and commercial hub, has become an important centre of politics, cultural and trading activities. All the events happening abroad or in any part of the country have a conspicuous bearing on the situation in the capital, which is reflected in the traffic scenario of the city.

Today, the population of Delhi exceeds 200 lakhs (approx.), vehicular population is approx. 105 lakhs and road length is 33,198 kms. Traffic management in Delhi is a Herculean task for Delhi Traffic Police. The task of traffic management has become difficult due to mixed traffic on the roads, unplanned growth of the city, lack of pedestrian facilities, erratic behavior of road users, shortage of parking spaces, unsatisfactory road conditions, etc. etc.

Starting from Jeep Scam in 1948, Congress has left a legacy of corruption and scams in India in her misrule of over six decades. The grand old party has also left a legacy of awarding plum posts to the scammers with the kingpin of first scam of Azad Bharat, Mr V K Krishan Menon being awarded a cabinet berth by first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

The instances of corruption and scams became so frequent during the reign of Indira Gandhi that former Defense Minister George Fernandes had called her ‘Fountainhead of corruption (Bhrastachar ki Gangotri) inside the Parliament. Her successor Rajiv Gandhi candidly confessed that out of Rs. 1 allocated by the Central Government only 15% was reaching at the bottom. This means that over 85% of the Central budget was going into corruption and scams during the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi.

The corruption and scams broke all the previous records during 10 years rule by Mr. Silence (Manmohan Singh) and Ms High Command (inaccessible to Media and People of India). People had lost the hope of revival and had almost accepted ‘corruption and scams’ as culture of Indian politics. In this pessimistic political environment Narendra Modi took over the reign of the country in 2014. 

There was euphoria all around in the country when elections to the Lok Sabha were being held in 2014. The Youth, the women, the industry, commerce, business and trade, the labour, the employer, name any one and s/he was in the frenzy mode of change. For them it was not merely an occasion to replace one political party or a combination of parties with another political party in the seat of authority, they all were dreaming something beyond that.

They rendered whole hearted support to a political leader who was full of confidence, vigour, determination and energy to transform not only the lingua franca of electoral politics beyond parochial boundaries of caste, class, region or religion, but also the agenda that saw nothing but the urges and aspirations of a new India. The electorate exhibited huge trust in Mr Modi when he promised a corruption free, hunger free, fear free India.

The ex-servicemen community in India is at political cross roads with a senior General Officer sharing the platform with the Congress. In fact come to think of it both the Congress and BJP have used political opportunism and en-cashed on the sentiments of the veterans. At Rewari an aspiring PM started the political campaign at an ex-servicemen rally.

The veterans are a closely linked community and a large number have sons and daughters or reinforced umbilical bonds with soldiering. The Indian Army is an apolitical body thus as a natural fallout, the ex-servicemen community is bound to follow the parent organization. On the other hand for individuals not to have political affiliations as, “man is a political animal”, is not possible. Thus while individuals can pursue politics at their own, the community and its representatives must work for the larger goals and welfare of its own kith and kin, more so, for the widows. So what does the community do and where does it go from here?

For the past three decades, October 31 was observed as day of mourning in the memory of assassinated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. On the morning of October 31, 1984 she was gunned down by her Sikh bodyguards as she walked out into the lawns of her residence at 10 Safdarjung Road in New Delhi. This was their revenge for Operation Bluestar, ordered by her earlier that year, which saw the Army enter the Golden Temple in Amritsar to weed out Khalistani secessionists.

One doesn’t recall anniversary of country’s first Deputy Prime Minister Vallabhbhai Patel being celebrated on October 31 in pre-1984 era or even when the non-Congress governments ruled at the Centre in post-1984 era. In the pre-1984, the Nehru-Gandhi family dominated Congress chose to ignore the legacy of first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s most formidable rival. In the post-1984 era, the non-Congress governments, including the NDA I, chose not to belittle the role of Indira Gandhi  and continued to observe the day of mourning on Oct 31.