Monday, May 20th 12:29 AM IST
 

UPA is better off without Trinamool Congress

Anant Rangaswami

The Congress-TMC relationship was increasingly looking like a failed marriage, where the husband and wife were fighting ugly fights, where the children were witness to the ugliness and neighbours, friends and families were dragged in unwillingly and unhappily. The relationship had reached a point of no return, with neither party able to even pretend to respect the other; slowly, the relationship sank to a low level of contempt, mistrust and plain hate. Leaving the marriage analogy, a relationship like this in governance is fraught with dangers to the governed; none is confident on decisions taken by either party in isolation. The parting of ways is closure; there is no pretence any more and both parties can pick up their lives and move on. The Congress has done what many do at the end of a broken marriage: found a new partner. How good the new relationship will be is anyone’s guess; but what is apparent is that the previous one wasn’t working and needed to end.read less read more

Sandip Roy

Mamata Banerjee was the alliance partner from hell but the known devil is worse than the unknown one. Mamata’s departure from UPA might give the PM temporary relief from her outbursts (and a useless rail minister), but leaves the UPA at the mercy of a grab bag of other parties, who will exact an even higher price for their support. The more Congress protests they have nothing to worry about, the more the UPA sounds like a sinking ship. If corruption is the big issue on which Congress must show movement to gain some credibility before facing voters, that seems even more unlikely given the kinds of leaders Congress leaders will have to go to for life support. read less read more