New Delhi: The Congress party and its leader Rahul Gandhi have done the thing that they often do the best. Give a suitable spin, get some snaps of 'embrace' clicked, and share it all over. But in the process, the politics of deaths have again surfaced.
The Congress party's cheques exclude the kin of BJP workers and the driver.
Division and discrimination being the key factors.
The UP government handed over cheques of Rs 45 lakh each to the families of all eight deceased. At the same time, the Congress party's sympathies and compensation amount of Rs 1 crore each were meant only for the families of 'four farmers' and a journalist killed in the incident.
One pro-Congress tweet says, "Yeh asoon jhooten nahin hae (The tears are not artificial)".
But some Twitteratis rightly, in their manner of curiosity, wanted to know whether Congress leaders and especially the brother-sister (Rahul-Priyanka Vadra) duo would also someday visit Jammu and Kashmir. The second reference is obviously to the merciless and insane killings of Hindus by Islamic Jehadists and terrorists.
Now on the compensation front for the Lakhimpur tragedy, a job to the next of kin has also been promised to the families of all deceased, sources in the UP government said.
It may be mentioned that the BJP has alleged that three of the victims – two BJP workers and driver of the Thar vehicle – were actually lynched to death by the mob 'of protesting farmers'.
If the money part of the saga is not yet over, former UP Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has said the state government should give compensation of Rs 2 crore to the families of the "farmers".
Left to neutral observers, the entire episode and especially the high-profile drama after the tragic deaths is linked to futuristic political road maps and could seek an answer whether Congress leadership (brother-sister duo) are still relevant in electoral counts.
Coincidence in politics is often more political than the ground zero politics itself.
Here are the checklists of some of these coincidences and timing.
Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress has started making noises and has embarked on a growth trajectory at the cost of Congress – as in Goa, Assam and possibly Meghalaya and other states.
The neo-communists Kanhaiya Kumar and Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mewani's entry into the Congress did not get much media mileage.
In Delhi, an old family loyalist and former Union Minister Kapil Sibal (remember his 'zero loss' theory about the 2G spectrum scam) raised a banner of revolt. He said, "We cannot be doing Jee-Huzuris'.
The 'first family' was shocked. If loyalists give up being 'loyals', the message could be dangerous. In 2024, Rahul would be (or could be) Congress in charge for the third consecutive Lok Sabha polls. The 2014 tally was the lowest ever, and the 2019 show only had strengthened Narendra Modi's hands.
In between, cricket star and Imran Khan-admirer Navjot Singh Sidhu virtually showed the family and the siblings do not matter much.
Protest in front of Sibal's house generated angry tweets from P Chidambaram, who has a record of quitting Congress despite being a family friend.
Former 'Captain' of Congress ship Amarinder Singh meets Amit Shah and Ajit Doval. Congress MLAs from another Congress-ruled state, Chhattisgarh, also land in Delhi. As the sceptical remark goes around rather acidly, the show has just begun.
