Short Takes
Physician heal thyself
Dr Mohammad Manzoor Alam wonders whether BJP has any more issues left to disrupt Parliament sessions in coming days.
At this point in time one has only sympathy for poor BJP. Not that it has done anything to earn it: it gets our sympathy by default. For years it has profitably sold terrorism for electoral gains and for keeping itself ahead of others in its favourite game of nationalist one-upmanship.
For years it has sold terrorism as a Muslim phenomenon, keeping a blind eye to much more dangerous ethnic terrorism, or its most lethal variety, Maoist terrorism. Being experts in Muslim bashing they had found in the bogey of “Muslim Terrorism” a great advantage, thus dangerously shifting national attention from the bigger menace of Naxal violence. “Zero tolerance for terrorism” was their favourite election card.
However, this advantage was blown away when the late Hemant Karkare-led ATS uncovered the massive Hindutva terror network. First the Sangh tried to deny it, then to thwart the legal proceedings against its terrorists. Frustrated, they simply dropped the terror card altogether and gave away its advantage in embarrassment.
For a better part of this year BJP has been using corruption as a stick to beat UPA with, even going to the extent of maliciously and irresponsibly disrupting Parliament at great cost to We, the People of India. Now that it has been caught with its pants down as a voluminous torrent of the corrupt business practices of its “clean” president Nitin Gadkari has flooded the news cycle, it is clear that BJP no longer is in a position to point fingers towards others’ corruption. To add to its shame, Gadkari is the second party president to have been found indulging in blatant corruption.
The Sangh’s corruption ploy did not work when it threw its resources behind Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev. The Baba has to answer for his own financial wrong doing and the forgery of his Sancho Panza. Not only that, India Against Corruption warriors Mayank Gandhi and Anjali Damania, too, are still to come clean on corruption charges against them.
The BJP physician must heal itself before trying to treat others. By the way, any idea about which issues BJP will raise in next elections, or in coming days in Parliament?
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