Author: Editorial
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: December 13, 2004
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/131204-editorial.html
We are back to the incorrigible
Laloo Prasad Yadav again. The Railway Minister in the Government of gentleman
Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, seeks attention in ways which cannot but
reflect poorly on the ragtag ruling UPA. Yet, neither Singh nor his controller-cum-
boss, Sonia Gandhi, seems to have either the courage or the inclination
to discipline him.
Yadav sets his own boorish standards
and expects that his colleagues in the ruling coalition and everyone else
outside will applaud him. The latest episode in the ongoing Laloo Chalisa
pertains to the plain untruth mouthed by him on the floor of the House
on Wednesday. Pressed by the Opposition to either confirm or deny his charge
against the Steel Minister, Ram Vilas Paswan, Yadav did the unthinkable.
He lied with a straight face.
He had said on more than one occasion
that Paswan as the Railway Minister in the Deve Gowda Government was involved
in the Rs 800 crore scam. It was his case that money had changed hands
in the purchase of defective cranes by the railways when Paswan was the
minister in- charge.
He, in fact, had gone on to assert
that he would conclusively establish that Paswan was corrupt as he had
gathered all the facts in the crane scam. Most newspapers and television
news channels duly had recorded Yadav's charge against his ministerial
colleague.
Paswan, on his part, had called
Yadav "chara chor" and had vowed to ensure his defeat in the forthcoming
elections to the Bihar Assembly due early next year. The two Bihar leaders
had been trading charges in public, a fact duly noted by the print and
television media.
Now, on Wednesday when opposition
members raised the question about the charge and counter-charge between
the two Cabinet ministers, Yadav with a straight face denied he had said
what he had been widely quoted as having said. He told the Lok Sabha that
all these reports are untrue.'
Newspaper after newspaper had reported
that Yadav had called Paswan "chieftain of criminals." He had gone on to
say that " Paswan claims to be honest but no force on earth can save him
the moment I make some files public." Another leading paper reported that
"Yadav repeated that Paswan was involved in irregularities in the Rs 800
crore purchase of cranes from a foreign country."
Now, so many news media outfits
cannot be wrong and only Yadav right? Clearly, caught in an embarrassing
position in Parliament, Yadav did what comes naturally to crooked politicians,
that is, lie. Without mincing words, let us say that Parliament was misled,
nay, lied to by a senior minister in the Government of gentleman Prime
Minister.
Yet, as is his wont, the good doctor
would carry on as if nothing had happened. What about the principle of
collective responsibility of the Cabinet? And about the image of the Government
which has, on the authority of its own senior ministers, a corrupt minister
involved in the Rs 800- crores scam and another involved in the Rs. 800
crore fodder scam?
Or is it that even gentlemen can
discover uses for power and make terrible compromises to retain it by hook
or crook? Slowly but surely, the mask of his gentlemanliness will be ripped
apart unless the good doctor tames his tainted colleagues and insists that
they behave within the outer- most boundaries of acceptable ministerial
conduct.
We hope the gentleman PM wouldn't
allow his ministers to cross the Lakshmanrekha of orderly ministerial conduct.
