Manoj Sharma
Rahul Gandhi, the prince of Congress, has put a question mark on the functioning of the government under the leadership of Manmohan Singh. Has any Congressman ever questioned the functioning of his Indiraji or Rajivji’s government? Had any Congressman ever called any ordinance brought under his Dadi’s or father’s government—“nonsense and be torn”? If ever any Congressmen had opposed the writ of Indira or Rajiv, they were shown the door. Jethmalani’s ‘10-question a day’ in the famed Bofors scam rattled Rajiv so much that he told reporters “I don’t reply to dogs”.
Was Rahul seriously unaware about the Ordinance that protected convicted MPs or was he kept in the dark? If he was kept in the dark, then the government and Congress party are in the state of collision. But it seems unbelievable that Rahul was not aware. There are Congressmen who are in the cabinet and are more loyal to the party. What happened to the youth brigade of Rahul as some are also part of the government? Did they not brief Rahul about the Ordinance that was in the pipeline to protect convicted lawmakers from disqualification? It was a conspiracy hatched by the loyal Congress partymen to embarrass their own PM when he was not in the country. It was nothing short of backstabbing.
Many in Congress are unable to come to terms that Manmohan Singh will complete two terms of five years each. In future AICC meets, they will have to put Manmohan Singh’s image along with the images of Nehru, Indira, Rajiv, Sonia and Rahul. This will dilute the character of Congress party, which is of the Gandhis, by the Gandhis and for the Gandhis. It is for this reason coterie in the Congress, which is also a part of cabinet, keep harping Rahul as the future PM thus forcing Manmohan Singh to also issue a statement every now and then that in Rahul he sees a great future PM and the next general elections will be fought under Rahul’s leadership.
This is not the first time that Rahul has indulged in sensationalism. In Greater Noida also, when villagers launched an agitation for higher compensation from the private builders, which turned violent and leaders of other political parties were stopped, it was Rahul who reached on a bike with Congress party men, a clue probably taken from the 70s Bollywood script, to meet the villagers and sympathise with them. The publicity he got was immense, but could not convert it into votes in the UP Assembly.
Sarabjit Singh, an Indian, was killed in Pakistan jail. When his last rites were performed in his village, entire Punjab state was present to pay respect to the departing soul. But reporters from different channels were speculating whether Rahul Gandhi will come or not and if yes then when.
His quest for media publicity started when he toured the villages, where he worked like a labourer, stayed in the houses of people living below poverty line, ate and slept with them and media hype was created as if this was the only yatra ever undertaken by any leader after Gandhiji’s Dandi yatra . Certain section in the Congress party who has vested interests and is close to or would like to remain in the good books of 10 Janpath, is firmly of the opinion that there is no one except Rahul Gandhi who can keep the party united. It seems that all this is scripted to boost the morale of Rahul Gandhi who otherwise is not a strong individual. He is also a weak candidate vis-a-vis Modi, which Congress poll managers are aware of. The Congress party, by all means, wants to portray his image larger than life amongst the countrymen. This image-building with well-defined sequence of events would not lead him to 13 Race Course as the nation is not in a mood to lend a hand to scam-tainted Congress.
On September 29, when PM Singh met Nawaz Sharif in New York it was being reported that Sharif has agreed and also desires “improvement of the situation on the LOC” and that Sharif, along with PM Singh, has also decided to task military officers to “find effective means to restore ceasefire”. The recent gun-battle going on in Kashmir speaks loads of what Sharif actually meant by these statements. Lt Gen Gurmeet Singh, General Officer Commanding (GoC) said “This is BAT (Border Action Team) action cum infiltration”.
The gun-battle is going on in the Shalbathe (or Shala Bhata) village in the Keran Sector of the Kupwara district from September 24. Around 10-12 militants have been killed and five Indian soldiers have been injured. Earlier it was apprehended that Paki Army has taken over the village but later Lt. Gen Gurmeet Singh denied this as “absurd”. In any case it is being said that such a long hold-up has never happened after Kargil.
Meanwhile Pak has returned to its typical denial mode with its Army denying the claim that its soldiers are among the infiltrators and calling it a “blatant lie” and “baseless allegation”. It is quite similar to the denial of Nawaz Sharif that he called Manmohan Singh a dehati aurat (rustic woman) in front of journalists in New York. In 2013 alone there have been about 150 recorded ceasefire violations by the Paki Army. After all the hyped ‘talks’ and ‘dialogues’ between the PM Singh and Nawaz Sharif it seems that the situation of diplomatic relations of Indo-Pak is back to square one only with its never ending ‘alleging-denying’ quarrels.
LeT commander manages to escape police
Meanwhile in Srinagar a top LeT commander-Abu Huraira-managed to escape from the cordon of security forces. On October 2 at 6 pm, following the intelligence inputs, the police forces launched a raid in the Ahmed Nagar locality of Soura area of Srinagar. The militant was trapped there and started heavy gunfire and hurled grenades on the police; since then and a fierce gun-battle was going on. But around 2 am at midnight, taking advantage of darkness, he managed to escape. Total eight policemen are injured in this operation and are being treated in the SKIMS Hospital.
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