Recent events have brutally exposed the ‘game-plan’ of UPA and have left the people full of disgust. It is just not confined to the electoral battle that is being fought in the most populous state in India. The idea seems to subvert and cripple all constitutional authorities, institutions and defame individuals who stand in the way of brazen violations of the model code of conduct. But it is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Digvijaya Singh, Salman Khurshid, Beni Prasad Verma and now Sriprakash Jaiswal seem to be acting out a well-choreographed script, out-performing each other to shock the secular-democratic conscience of the nation. It is the promise of a reservation quota on thinly disguised religious basis one day and disputing the genuineness of the Batla House encounter on the other. Khurshid’s heart bleeds recalling how Sonia Gandhi had ‘cried’ tears streaming down her cheeks when atrocities against the minority community were brought to her notice, and Beni babu stops just short of singing in a soul-stirring manner the anthem of patriotic revolutionaries — Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai, dekhna hai zor kitna bazu-e-qatil mein hai!’ (Prepared for the much wished for beheading, I fear not the executioner! Let’s see how strong is his arm that wields the sword.) Jaiswal’s inspiration obviously comes from Dominique Lapierre and Co. The country, he thunders as he campaigns, needs to keep another tryst with destiny. Rahul’s anointment can’t brook delay, or await some distant dawn. When the whole world sleeps, India must awake to democratically established dynastic servitude. If the crown prince is reluctant, a short spell of Presidential rule in Uttar Pradesh is what the good doctor Manmohan Singh will readily prescribe.
All these worthies have tied themselves in knots time and again when caught on the wrong foot, trying to wriggle out of the words they have wielded as weapons of mass destruction. When the fig leaf is blown away by the media, only superb skill of a professional contortionist can come to the rescue. Who would have thought that these heavyweights in the Congress Party could have given a run for their money to the kids in the circus who flaunt a rubbery body.
It’s not just the Election Commission that is denigrated and abused systematically, milestone judgments of the apex court are sought to be undone or put in suspended animation via a series of review petitions. Be it the decision in favour of Vodafone in an income tax dispute or permission granted to Subramanian Swamy to file a case against P Chidambaram for his complicity in the 2G scam, the rattled UPA has left no one in doubt that if it has its way, it will be some time before the law can take its course. Such dilatory tactics has only lowered the Prime Minister in public esteem. No Empowered Group of Ministers can restore it or a change of media advisers undo the damage.
Launching yet another central agency to combat terrorism has stirred the hornet’s nest. More than a dozen chief ministers belonging to different political parties with discordant ideologies have picked up the gauntlet together. They have, without mincing words, accused the Centre (read UPA led by Congress) of destroying the federal structure of our polity. This may have been Chidambaram’s pet project but in all probability, he is being used as the cat’s paw in this case. As usual, the bewildered Prime Minister has been speechless and largely invisible. His minions and mentors have taken it upon themselves to ‘explain’ the totally unacceptable.
What is most distressing is that suddenly the CBI is in overdrive and has become exceptionally generous with supplying information about ‘foreign funds’ received by NGOs that have opposed the UPA government’s megalomaniac ‘will to eternal power’. Strong shades of allegations of foreign hand subverting India’s sovereignty in pre-Emergency Indira days. Rest assured, more official disclosures will follow to ‘terminate opposition with extreme prejudice’. One is left questioning the need for a new agency when we have at our disposal such efficient and loyal institutions that can nip all evil in the bud and so easily annihilate enemies of the nation?
To break into the Muslim, Dalit and OBC vote banks for its short-term gain, the Congress and UPA have brought the nation to a dangerous brink. Unfulfilled personal ambitions of persons like Khurshid can be no less perilous than unrequited love. Chameleon-like politicians of Beni babu’s hue or sycophants like Jaiswal shouldn’t blind us to those who stand and wait, serving their cause silently — the self-styled ‘Best and the Brightest’ backroom boys. Our democratic world may not end with a bang, but can well do so with or without a whimper!
;The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own