JAMMU: For 75 years, the Congress has been taking credit for the independence of India from the British– rightly so. Will now the grand old party also take credit for celebrating the summons of the Enforcement Directorate in the cases of corruption, malpractices and other unfair means? They should, since the trend has been set in motion by none other than the Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi-the heir apparent of the legacy left by Mahatma Gandhi. It is different that Bapu had sought disbanding of the Congress after independence.
What has happened to this nation?
Emulating Sonia and Rahul, currently on bail in the infamous National Herald case, the most vocal Member Parliament of Udhav Shiv Sena, Sanjay Raut, under the custody of Enforcement Directorate following his arrest after hectic 10 hour grilling in an alleged money laundering case, kept waving hands at the media persons as if he had conquered the Everest or won for India gold medal in Olympics. Such a fanfare must be unheard anywhere in the civilized world where even Prime Ministers have faced judicial dispensations and convictions. Why should it be only in India where even investigations into the cases are a taboo? A day earlier, Shiv Sena supporters assembled outside the residence of Raut and created a ruckus. As if it was not enough, the supremo of the party and former Chief Minister Udhav Thakerey visited the residence of his MP to show solidarity. Having held constitutional position till a month ago, shouldn’t he have allowed the law to take its course?
The Congress has invoked the pre-independence mode of Satyagrahs for bullying the investigating agencies and to corner the Centre. This is anarchy. This is like creating obstacles in the dispensation of rule of law.
But for the seizure of the mountains of currency truck loads from a female aide of the axed West Bengal Minister Partha Chatterjee, the Trinamol Congress too had started the song of victimization when its senior leader was arrested. The TMC spokerspersons had unleashed an orchestrated tirade against the BJP, describing the ED as its ‘Extended Department’. However, seizures in raids after raids brought the TMC on the back foot. Otherwise, things would have been quite different now, given the anarchist mindset of the TMC. A glimpse of such anarchy was visible in Delhi also after the arrest of Health Minister Satynder Jain. Despite being in custody for two months, he continues to be a minister in the Arvind Kejriwal ministry. Kejri’s adventurism and anarchy too got brakes after the Lieutenant Governor recommended CBI probe into the new excise policy. Apprehending trouble and the arrest of his deputy, the Arvind Kejriwal government rolled back the policy, lest the corrupt practices get exposed.
With such a culture being pushed by the opposition, the campaign against corruption seems to be a Himalayan task. The opposition is so emboldened that it has virtually held ransom the proceedings in the both houses of Parliament. In such a scenario, the law enforcing agencies must be thinking twice while initiating action against the corrupt.
Now that Sanjay Raut has been remanded to ED custody till August 4, the nation is poised to yet another high profile appearance of former Union Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah. He has been summoned by the agency in the alleged Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Scam on August 27. The last time he was summoned on May 31 for allegedly making appointments in the sports body so that the BCCI funds could be laundered. Dr Farooq Abdullah had extended full cooperation to the investing agency in the earlier appearances. Will he respect the summons at this point of time as the nation is gripped by the new-found culture of celebrating corruption and mocking the probe agencies?
For their love of the Nehru-Gandhi clan, the Congress has vitiated the political environment of the country by setting the trend of defiance and non-cooperation.
This was not the case decades ago, despite the party having touched the lowest depths, when former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, along with his home minister Buta Singh, was convicted for three years on September 29, 2000 by a special court on charges of bribing lawmakers to support his government in a confidence vote in 1993.
Though the Delhi High Court had later overturned the lower court’s decision and cleared both of them of charges yet there was no hullabaloo because they were not the Gandhis.