HVK Archives: Sonia=27s_Tirupati_prayer?Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 13:04:33 -0000
Sonia=27s_Tirupati_prayer?Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 13:04:33 -0000 - Newstime
Editorial
()
January 30, 1999
Title: Sonia's Tirupati prayer
Author: Editorial
Publication: Newstime
Date: January 30, 1999
When she had first entered active politics, Congress president
Sonia Gandhi had shown a marked predilection for launching
irrational attacks against her political adversaries, based
purely on the highly imaginative stuff fed to her by her
advisers. That with increasing maturity and feel for politics,
this habit has not faded one bit, is shown both by her attack on
the Telugu Desam and chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, as well
as her challenge to the BJP government's allies to withdraw
support to the government. One does not know how well-informed
is Sonia Gandhi about matters pertaining to Andhra Pradesh, but
it is reasonable to assume that much of her information comes to
her from entirely non-reliable sources in the Congress like YS
Rajasekhar Reddy and others. They are non-reliable because
their views are coloured by their political opposition to chief
minister Chandrababu Naidu and his party. It must be plain to
the meanest intelligence that programmes such as the Janmabhoomi
project, that has drawn her ire and criticism, are aimed at a
social transformation that goes far ahead of the ordinary file-
and-push work done in most government departments. Obviously,
the Congress, which is in opposition in the state, will see no
merit in whatever Chandrababu Naidu does. ' But for a party
president to heap abuses on the state government and its
machinery, based on blatantly partisan views, is hardly the kind
of constructive politics she says she pursues. One flying visit
will not acquaint Sonia Gandhi with what is happening here in
the state, nor equip her to criticise the ground realities here.
In her Tirupati speech, Sonia Gandhi has also challenged the
BJP's allies like the AIADMK, Trinamul Congress, the Samata
Party and the Akali Dal to withdraw support to the Vajpayee
government. And this, after all the high moral ground she had
assumed when she said that neither she, nor the Congress was in
the destabilising game and that she would do nothing to
encourage the Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha in this nefarious
game. If that were her pious intention, then why is the
Congress president now trying to provoke the BJP allies into
deserting it? There seems to be no logic in what the lady
wants. On the one hand she rebuffs the advances of a party like
Jayalalitha's AIADMK and now indirectly challenges the same
party to withdraw the prop to Vajpayee. This is sheer unalloyed
political mischief. Sonia Gandhi knows that there have been
stresses and strains within the alliance because of the recent
happenings in Gujarat and Orissa. So while there is a fertile
ground for playing the mischief, why pretend with niceties like
the high moral ground? Sonia Gandhi is welcome to all this and
even more. But for heaven's sake, let her stop pretending that
she and her Congress are purer than the driven snow. As for
professions of secularism, let the Muslims and other minorities
who are coming back to the Congress fold, contend with her
Tirupati visit. So much for secularism.
Back
Top
|
