HERALDING DISTURBANCES

                                

The rejection by the Delhi High Court of the  petition of Mr. Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi seeking leave from personal appearance in the court has propelled a new trend of recording protest. The Congress party has rated it as an example of political vendetta and accordingly its MsP in both Houses have been stalling proceedings since yesterday. The Speaker kept on enquiring about the reason of this protest but ignoring the same, they continued shouting in the well of the House.

Outside  the Houe, the Congress leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma etc haverepeated only one charge that under the NDA regime there were two sets of rules – one for the ruling party and the other for the opposition. When the press pressed for further clarification, they said that while nothing was being done in cases against the chief ministers of Rajasthan,  Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, why the Gandhi family alone should be singled out.

The ruling party representatives argued that this case was launched by Dr. Subramanian Swamy in 2012 when the Congress was in power both in Delhi and at the Centre. At that time Dr. Swamy was the President of the Janata Party and had nothing to do with the BJP. In this backdrop it was baseless to allege that the BJP was firing on the Congress leadership by putting its gun on the shoulder of Dr. Swamy. Earlier also he had fought several important PILs including one against alleged corrupt practices of Dr. Jaylalithaa in which she was sent to jail. At that time also he had no truck with the BJP.

According to NDA leaders in the Parliament, Gandhi family should not make it an issue. The court has not given any verdict. It has just asked them to appear in person to project their defence. Earlier Dr. Manmohan Singh, Narsimha Rao (both the then PM) and Narendra Modi (CM Gujarat) had appeared in the court. The court, in connection with the National Herald case had asked six named persons namely Mrs. Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Moti Lal Vora, Sam Pitroda, Oscar Fernandez and Suman Dubey to appear in person. This much has irritated the Congress so badly that they have disturbed the parliamentary functioning. The country wants to know how for a judicial action the BJP is held responsible and how far is it justifyable to drag this outside issue to the Parliament. The Congress has been intentionally blocking the GST Bill in the Rajya Sabha because with its passage, the national economy will look up and the Modi Govt. score an honour. In last few weeks the political parties like SP, BSP, BJD and TMC have indicated to support the GST. The Congress, out of fear for getting exposed is exploiting the Herald case to hamstring the House. Of late, the TMC supremo has started nourishing a soft corner for the Congress. The reason is her restlessness after getting hints that Mrs. Gandhi was probing an electoral alliance with the CPI (M).

Dragging the judiciary in a political seesaw battle and involving the Parliament is not auguring well for democracy. The people at large should stand up and tell such political outfits to behave.