DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RULING AND CAMPAIGNING

During election time in India, whether its state elections or general elections,
we see parties holding mega rallies, the rallies being broadcast throughout
the country. The main point of the rallies is to find fault in the other party.
Hardly, we see policy talks in rallies. And even when such talks are
organized by news channels, all the party representatives do is to shoot
arrows at other parties. Their basic agenda is appealing to voters to vote
them because they are involved in much lesser scandals than the other
party.

The parties do release their manifestos, but only a few points from within
the manifesto are publicized. Anyways, coming back to the title of the
article, when a party is selected to rule, some other party is selected as the
opposition. And the work of the opposition is to hold the ruling party
accountable but the opposition is sometimes, so engrossed in bringing the
ruling party down, that they even go against some important piece of
legislation. But besides that, when the government implements new plans
and actions and faces flak for it, the basic tactic of the ruling party is to
blame the opposition for their actions when they were in power. They forget
that the campaign is over, and its their time to showcase their plans and be
answerable.

When news channels organize debates, the above tactic is clearly evident.
Throughout the debate, the tactics of BJP is to attack Congress over their
rule, without answering for their actions. No one denies that every ruling
party should be answerable for their rule, be it any party. But when
someone is in power, they need to switch off their campaign modes and
answer for their actions and work for the people. Its not sustainable if the
entire debate is about who did what. So, parties need to understand the
difference between ruling and campaigning.