Editorial:...and then what?

Ridicule and criticism are necessary ingredients of a political speech, but need they also define the intellectual limits of the political speaker? Only a section of the panchayat bodies, more than in past elections but still only those not already secured uncontested by the ruling party, are going to poll on Saturday and the Dasain hiatus has pushed campaigning to a frenetic level in the few days still at hand for politicking. For all intents and purposes, there is only one party in the fray, albeit in two aggressively divergent factions. And they are more than making up for the absence of other players, having even worked in a scale of violence [in one episode] rare even for the bigger stakes assembly polls. The violence apart, even the speeches have been scathingly virulent, which should perhaps have been expected since both factions are privy to too much inside information. This is one episode which has ensured some vicarious pleasure for the Opposition camp as it joins the rest of Sikkim in watching the two factions slash extensive self-inflicted harm which is ridiculous and confusing at the same time. Dissidence and rebellion are to be expected in any organisation, and the latest conflict within the ruling party is neither surprising nor new. That said, now that the confrontation is on campaign mode, it needs highlighting that criticism, while it is always entertaining, is best deployed to put issues in perspective and highlight failures and shortcomings of opponents. Once the premise has been established, political debates should delve on how the aspirants would have handled the situations better and how they propose to repair what they see as ‘damage’. The substance of the public addresses has to be in the solutions that the respective parties and their speakers have devised, the vision they have sketched out for Sikkim and its people. Of course, vicious public rhetoric will make a leader a popular public speaker, but it is yet to translate into votes at least in Sikkim. Politics in Sikkim offers itself to no easy interpretations and parties in Opposition have already learned that they cannot ride an anti-incumbency wave or elevate their poll chances just by scratching away at the government’s failings. After every low-blow has been delivered, the audience will be softened, but the knock-out punch of complete conversion will have to come in the form of alternate plans and remedies. And this approach applies as much to the ruling party as it does to its dissident faction, because while both are doing a rather vicious job of ridiculing the other and running each other down, they are both still at the level of settling scores and have not outlined how the mistakes will not be repeated...