BJP National President Shri Nitin Gadkari seems to have hit the Congress where it hurts the most. In Kolkata the other day he said “Sonia Gandhi says she will fight corruption. I say it is like Pakistan saying we will fight terrorism.” He added, “When Pakistan says we will fight terrorism, even the people of Pakistan and rest of world don’t believe it. Similarly, when she says so (on corruption) not even Congressmen will believe the same.”
What is wrong or offensive in the statement? If Smt Sonia Gandhi is sincerely and honestly with the crusade against corruption and black money, why is the Congress at odds with the non-political organisations like ‘Nation Against Corruption’, ‘Civil Society’ of veteran Gandhian Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev’s ‘Swabhiman Andolan’? Why is the Manmohan Singh government spreading canards and emitting venom against these organisations and individuals? Why has the government let loose a reign of terror, reminiscent of the British days and Emergency on peaceful squatters sleeping at the dead of night at Ramlila grounds?
Were the Congress war against corruption and black money genuine, there would have been no occasion for the likes of Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare to raise their voice shrill. If they still did, there would have been no takers for their blurbs, not to speak of followers.
On the contrary, the Congress and UPA government is fighting with those who are waging a war against corruption and black money. They are trying their best to muster all their political skills and administrative muscle to throttle the voice of the Civil Society and Ramdev supporters. They are employing every dirty trick of the game to frustrate the agitation by overawing the crusaders with ordering investigations into their conduct to show them in bad light. They are also trying to sow seeds of discord and division within the movement ranks, as did the British in the past.
At the same time, both Congress and government seem to be shying away from acting against the corrupt. They are at subduing those who are fighting against corruption while doing everything they can to save the honour of those who have stashed ill-earned money in foreign banks by refusing to disclose their names ‘in the name of ‘public interest’.
Fighting corruption and black money should be a national cause in which every political organisation and individual, irrespective of political leanings, should be seen standing as a single rock in achieving this objective. When India was fighting for Independence support from any individual or group with whatever background was always welcome in achieving the common objective. Their credentials were never questioned.
To weaken the war against corruption, the Congress is raising the bogey of RSS, BJP and even Maoists supporting Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare. It is a perverse argument. Does it mean that if BJP, RSS, Maoists or other individuals and organisations are supporting the fight against corruption and black money, Congress should always be seen on the opposite side? Inversely, to oppose BJP and RSS, Congress and its government will promote corruption?
On the same analogy, does it also mean that if tomorrow Pakistan or China invades India and BJP, RSS and other organisations opposes the attack Congress and UPA government would extend their wholehearted support to the invader, Congress will stop fighting the nation’s enemy?
Such a conduct creates doubts over Congress integrity on the issue. While creating a façade of support to anti-corruption measures, its behaviour and action fail to inspire confidence in public mind.
As a ‘proof’ of its fight against corruption, Congress is today citing the cases of A. Raja and Suresh Kalmadi. But people do very well remember that it was both Dr. Manmohan Singh and Mrs. Sonia Gandhi who were issuing certificates of innocence and honesty to both till the courts stepped in to make things difficult both for the government and the accused.
Political observers believe, according to the daily MAIL TODAY, that the Congress went hyper with its reaction. “Gadkari did not make any personal attack on the Congress president but was trying to be funny (meaning sarcastic). When it comes to the Gandhi family, the Congress men go overboard to prove their loyalty”.
Congress reaction was on expected lines. BJP national General Secretary Shri Jagat Prakash Nadda was quick to retort that Shri Gadkari’s observation was “apt and true. If anybody has to tender an apology, he said, it is the Congress alone for having used “outrageously” unparliamentary remarks like maut ka saudagar against a chief minister elected by the people.
Congress needs to look into its own self and language it has used, in the past, against those opposed to it. They sent four of their senior Cabinet ministers to receive Baba Ramdev at IGI airport Delhi but when he did not take their bait, Baba at once turned a “thug” for them. That precisely is the Congress “culture of sycophancy”.
The Congress reaction provides substance to the charge that the party stands reduced to a private limited company owned by a feudal dynasty with its workers behaving like courtesans extending earth-touching salutes in complete surrender to whatever the ruler said or did. Congress can brook no criticism of theirs. It only goes to provides credence to Shri Gadkari’s accusation that the Congress and UPA government led by Dr. Manmohan Singh are ‘fascist’.
Congress may be subsisting on a “culture” where the word of their present President Sonia Gandhi is a word of law, final, unchallengeable and deserving just docile obedience without questioning. But it can certainly not be so for those out of the Congress ambit and ideology.
Truth is always bitter and what Shri Gadkari had said was nothing less than truth. Congress follows the dictum: Those who agree with me are wise, those who don’t are fools. That is why what Shri Gadkari said was not digestible to the Congress as it is used to flattery and sycophancy. When BJP supported Congress to enable it to muster sufficient majority to get the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Deal through in Parliament, it was a sweet candy for both Sonia Gandhi and her courtiers. During the war with Pakistan in 1971, when Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee supporting the government’s war effort compared late Indira Gandhi to goddess Durga, it was fine, but when the same goddess is referred to for Bharatmata in the national song Vande Mataram it pinches the ‘secular’ psyche of both our Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi. They both abstain from joining its community singing in Party office at Akbar Road, New Delhi, and the official function organised by their own government to mark the centenary of this national song.
It is a living tribute to the honesty and sincerity of this Congress-led UPA government in eradicating corruption that it has surpassed all records of corruption and scams since the country gained Independence in 1947. Because of their ‘strenuous and sincere efforts’ today the Manmohan government is suffering from “a scam a day” syndrome. It has ended up only in promoting corruption and protecting the corrupt.
In their bizarre attempt to run down the stature of BJP National President Shri Nitin Gadkari, the Congress courtesans forget the fact that Shri Gadkari has matured into politics when he jumped into it as a student. On the other hand, the present Congress President Sonia Gandhi had not thought it fit to acquire Indian citizenship even 12 years after her marriage to late Rajiv Gandhi and for years after he became the Prime Minister. It is also the same Sonia Gandhi who did not feel it worthy of her for about two decades to be even an ordinary member of the Congress Party she heads today. She may have made a record of sorts — and everybody knows for what merit and what considerations – of being the longest serving Congress President, but she was prevailed upon to enroll herself as a member of Congress Party only in 1996 to be made the National President within two months. While Sonia Gandhi’s political career is only in her teens, Shri Gadkari has more experience as a politicians than the years she has spent as an Indian citizen.
