FROM THE VIEWSROOM. From Mother Teresa to Iron Man

Exaggeration and overstatement being essential traits in our national character, it is not surprising to hear epithets such as ‘Greek tragedy’ and ‘terminal decline’ being applied to the Congress and its president Sonia Gandhi. From the ranks of Gautam Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa to which Sonia was elevated following her “renunciation” and successive electoral victories, a rather “ordinary” leader has emerged. The latest to raise the red flag, former loyalist K Natwar Singh, has obvious reasons for waiting for the Congress to lose before he called a spade a spade. “Who would have heard me out?” he says logically.

Indeed, in the Congress president’s Mother Teresa avatar , a title bestowed on her by the speaker of the Bihar assembly Sadanand Singh, she could do no wrong. Her anointing of a political non-entity like Manmohan Singh to the Prime Minister’s office was hailed as a masterstroke. Even a scandalous event like the manipulation of the July 2008 trust vote was considered politically ingenious. But now that the Congress has been reduced to 44 seats, the Gandhis are apparently fair game. From Punjab, where former CWC member Jagmit Singh Brar has suggested a two-year sanyaas for the Gandhis, to Rajasthan where party MLA Bhanwar Lal Sharma has called Rahul Gandhi “MD of a team of jokers”, the first family has been handed the can for the party’s electoral defeat. Typically, the Gandhis have responded by brushing all criticism under the carpet and appointing the eternal loyalist AK Antony as head of a committee that will ostensibly probe the reasons for the party’s defeat.

Incidentally, a spectacle inversely proportional to the GOP’s Greek tragedy is unfolding in the ruling dispensation. The BJP has proudly hailed its Iron Man, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Forgotten are the frequent implosions, references to ‘Alice in Blunderland’ and constant infighting. Achche din is likely to be the dominant theme till the BJP’s electoral fortunes start declining. Between the Iron Man and Mother Teresa, the possibility of mature political discourse is rather remote in the world’s largest democracy.

Political Editor

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