ELECTION 99
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Election khichadi, II

He said, she said, I didn't say... The "intellectual elite's torchbearer" and the "reluctant, high-minded politician," Dr Manmohan Singh, accused the RSS of engineering the 1984 anti-Sikh riots -- and then claimed that he'd "merely" stated that certain individuals belonging to the RSS had been named in FIRs.

Thing is, former Congressman S S Ahluwalia, himself a Sikh, affirms that during his association with the Dhillon Committee, there was no record placed to show the involvement of any RSS member in the carnage.

Ok, never mind. But how does one explain Dr Singh's "To say that Congress as a party was involved in the riots is not correct"...? To add insult to injury, he also lamented that the media never published these "facts."

Eh? What it did publish were details from reports of various human rights orgs, the Ranganath Misra Report, and findings of several committees -- all directly condemning a large number of senior Congress leaders like Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar.

Just three days ago, the Delhi high court began hearing a petition for registration of an FIR filed by Rajwant Kaur, whose husband, son and nephew were killed by a mob in Tytler's constituency of North Delhi in November 1984. The court has ordered the police to provide protection to Kaur's brother-in-law, ex-serviceman Dilbagh Singh, who filed a writ petition challenging the CBI report that gave a clean chit to Tytler.

The Sikh Forum, presided over by Lt Gen (retd) Jagjit Singh Aurora, states, "No doubt, unscrupulous politicians take such shelter of falsehood and unprincipled stand to win elections, but no one expected Dr Singh to play such a nefarious game to achieve his motive."

How soon has Manmohan Singh forgotten Rajiv's "Jab koi bada peyd girta hai to zameen hilti hai." How soon has he forgotten the over 5,000 Sikhs -- men, women and children -- massacred by Congress mobs across the country. Lads set ablaze with burning tyres around their necks, the arson, the looting... Yech. This is no Sikh. This is a barnacle.

*****

R K Mishra, chairman of the Observer group of newspapers, has complained to the Election Commission against the Congress (I, for Italian), which has accused him of having sweetened the alleged sugar deal. Bozos responsible for the no-word-against-Sonia diktat, see their sins come home to roost...

*****

"Vajpayee has committed high treason... The BJP is communalising the armed forces in the manner of the Third Reich... Secret orders have been sent to the MoD by the RSS... The NDA's gameplan bears striking resemblance to Hitler's."

It's time to bring out the strait-jacket for Vishnu Bhagwat. That is, if Subramanian Swamy spares one.

*****

News that made no news: On August 30, about 2,000 armed tribals attacked the Jain temples of Lord Adinath and Lord Parshwanath in Rohira, Rajasthan. They vanquished the small police force, demolished the idols, stole the silver and cash, and attacked the monks.

Just wondering: What happens when tribals in Orissa and Gujarat attack Christian priests and churches...?

*****

One wit asks: "The only credentials Sonia Gandhi has for becoming prime minister of India is that her husband was also prime minister. He was also an airline pilot. Would you let her fly a plane based on that fact alone?"

*****

Mani Shankar Aiyar believes he'll get all the Christian votes in his Mayiladuthurai constituency -- instrumental as he's been in adding the promise of reservations to Dalit Christians in the Congress manifesto. Imam Bukhari has publicly instructed Muslims to shun both, Congress and BJP. Archbishop Alan de Lastic has issued a voting "guideline" for his Christian flock.

And Balasaheb Thackeray has lost his right to vote because he addressed Hindu voters...

*****

H S Surjeet asserts that a third front led by Leftists will emerge after these elections. Senility really has set in...

*****

A gem from the Barnacle: Low inflation is "not a consequence of good housekeeping but an act of God." Chalo, the Gods, too, are with Atalji...

*****

Apropos wine and women, Ghulam Nabi Azad said, "We don't do such things, but had such things been done by our leaders we would have been torn to pieces."

Hmm... fortunately for the Congress, Indian journalism hasn't sunk to the sordid levels that British and American media have. For instance, most of us in the Press have always known about the aged Congressman who is not a womaniser: he prefers adolescent boys. Then there's the hot-shot Congress leader who shares a "spiritual" relationship with the wife of a media baron... Then there's the... Arre, kyon mooh khulvaate ho? Let sleeping dogs lie.

*****

I was very amused by V Gangadhar's Nehruvian ire: "Yet, they were elected by the people to rule the country. But, according to Tavleen Singh, Jawaharlal Nehru and his family are the arch-enemies and India was destroyed because of Nehru's socialist leanings."

Question: Was the BJP-led alliance -- always at the receiving end of Gangadhar's tirades -- elected by Martians...? One doesn't need a book to realise what's gone wrong with Indian journalists during the past 50 years...

*****

The Hindustan Times took great pains to rebut Pramod Mahajan's charge that its Delhi stable had twisted the report dispatched by correspondent Pramod Pagedar. Executive editor Bharat Bhushan stood by it, on the ground that Mahajan's quote was used verbatim and that "by any reckoning, he was equating Mrs Gandhi with Ms Lewinsky." The offending part was: "If we are so keen on having a foreigner as the prime minister, why not have Tony Blair or Bill Clinton or even Monica Lewinsky?"

Question: Why does everybody "equate" the Shroud with Monica?? Why not with Tony or Bill? Could it be because, subconsciously, they know that Sonia can't be compared to presidents and PMs...? Too, Bhushan has scrupulously avoided answering Pagedar's protest: "The story was distorted at the Delhi end by someone for reasons best known to him or her. The distortion in the copy has been enhanced with such comments as 'clearly encouraged by the crowd's response' and 'Mahajan's spurious logic was lost on the crowd'."

Question: Why would a writer sitting in Delhi add such from-the-spot comments about an event in Maharashtra if not at the behest of the Congress...? Why aren't the duffers moving the Press Council??

Now, a case is being built by Sonia's stables on Mahajan's "grossly violating a basic code of a democratic society -- that of Press freedom and the inviolability of private correspondence," by having procured an intra-office document. The Delhi Union of Journalists has warned that Mahajan must apologise for obtaining privileged internal correspondence, and called upon journos to "unitedly withstand pressures from certain political quarters." (!)

Question: What do these worthies call the Congress' and Outlook's procuring of Brigadier Surinder Singh's intra-army messages? A reporter's message to his editor is "an internal matter of this newspaper." And a brigadier's report to his COAS is...?

*****

On September 1, the Ambulance Chaser (aka Kapil Sibal), with a straight face, said, "All these moves reflected the fascist character of the ruling party... Never before in the history of free India have we had a minister pressurising a reporter to change his report."

Cool. But let's ponder the case of Chennai's J Mushtaq Ahmed, who used to display his cartoons on billboards at a site popularly called Mush-Talk Corner. One day in May, he committed the sin of lampooning the Shroud: He depicted Congressmen licking the deity's feet, with a caption saying, "Vande Mata-Rome."

Immediately, Congress activists ransacked his shop. Next, they drove him out of Chennai with threats to his retired father and paralysed mother.

Currently, Mushtaq is on a fast-unto-death outside the Italian embassy in Delhi. He says, "I am being tortured by Sonia Gandhi because I put up a hoarding on her Italian origins. My parents have collapsed. My showroom is closed for the past two months... I just want to lead a normal life with my parents. Please allow me to run my shop."

Forget the Emergency and its total pre-censorship on all newspapers. Forget a septuagenarian litterateur, Durgabai Bhagwat, being jailed for writing anti-Congress exposes. Forget Vinod Khanna being attacked by a Congress councilor. THIS is the history of free India...

*****

Manoj Malik, the lone survivor of the Sanjeev Nanda hit-and-run case, has turned hostile witness. He now says that he was hit by a truck. Manoj has been unemployed since he met with the accident. He came to Delhi with Rs 2,300. He appeared in court without a formal summons. He turned up with two lawyers -- Manoj Taneja and Santosh Mishra -- in tow. He feigned ignorance about his address in the city. He denied that his statement was recorded by the police. He denied that Sanjeev's BMW hit him.

The police have asked the court to ensure that the Nandas and their lawyers do not contact any witnesses.

So why's crime beating in a political column? Dumb question. Manoj told the court, "I came to Delhi from Tripura after Congress MP Sanjay Naik told me that the case was going on in Delhi. He also told me that I should contact Manoj Taneja and Santosh Mishra on reaching Delhi."

*****

What's happening about the charge that the Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board, at Chief Minister Digvijay Singh's behest, handed over a Rs 186 crore project to Ansaldo Services Private Limited -- a subsidiary of Ansaldo Energia of Italy -- even though BHEL was ready to undertake the project at lesser cost?

Does the word "Italy" have such a muzzling effect on the Press...?

*****

During a face-off at the Press Club of India, K N Govindacharya pointed out to the Ambulance Chaser that though the Congress has backtracked on its manifesto's commitment to single party rule, it does not have a common minimum programme for coalition governance. Reply: "Those who are with us will have to accept our manifesto."

The previous day, Sibal had stated that if the Congress came to power, it'll consider bringing "a legislation to enforce a code of conduct for the media."

Talk about fascist characteristics...

*****

Relating this ToI piece since I need to retract a previous assertion: The Shroud was asked via her website, "Why are you contesting from Bellary and Amethi? Are you running short of confidence?" Reply: "We have, since Indiraji's time, close bonds with the people of Andhra who believe in the Congress. I am 100 per cent sure of a decisive majority in Bellary."

I'm sorry, I made a grave error: Sonia *does* answer queries herself. Bellary is in Karnataka.

*****

My subtle suggestion -- "the next BJP person to play fair, loses a finger" -- has worked wonders on Arun Jaitley. I wish you could watch him on the tube: Right amount of aggro; no hysterics; impeccable logic; accurate fielding; evil cut-and-thrusts; cute, *cute* smile; and best of all, no crying "mummy!" to the EC.

Last night, Arun took on the Congress' Jairam Ramesh, to whom I'm particularly partial. It was a very lively debate, with both men running neck to neck -- till Jairam made the mistake of beating the same old drum: "There have been no riots because the people who caused them are in power."

I couldn't believe Jairam had said that! He probably thought Arun would go spluttering off the deep end a la Malkani or K L Sharma. But pat came the retort -- along with a totally wicked grin: "Well, that's a damn good enough reason to vote us in again!" What could Jairam say? The audience roared with laughter, and the round went to Arun.

Humour, and a fundie, too?! That's it; we've found our man...

Varsha Bhosle