Ms. Prime Minister
Monday, 3. January 2005 - 12:11 PM
Swapan Dasgupta has written really well on how Maino aka Sonia Gandhi is the real Ms. Prime Minister, unaccountable to any person or institution. She has to merely sigh and she’ll have a hundred maids enquiring her health. He also takes digs at the fearless, investigative media that has done a huge service to the public by unearthing shocking scandals. So much so that the Parliament is reduced to a “shouting shop,” to borrow his words.
To cut a long story short, Florence Nightingale Sonia has not forgotten people who are loyal to her. She has:
1) Ordered the CBI to reopen Advani’s Babri Masjid demolition case in which the Rae Bareily court had acquitted him. This was done when one, Mr. Pulok Chatterjee (an IAS man attached to the PMO, also known as “Madam’s man”) wrote a letter to Madam towards this end.
2) Helped one of Tehelka’s promoters to disentangle himself from a financial mess he had landed into. Madam wrote to the Finance Minister, Chidambaram to “oblige.” When questioned in the Rajya Sabha, the poor FM had to evade the question. He chose not to comment on the issue of the letter (from Madam) that instructed him to oblige.
What is clear in both these instances is that these acts were extra-constitutional: Sonia has no “place” in the current government, she isn’t even a minister, yet as the author says,
…there is the emergence of Sonia as India?s most effective fast-track facilitator ? a person whose intervention can cut official prevarication and get things done.
Every request from her invariably translates into a command for the ministers and the ever-obliging bureaucracy. And so what if some of the requests transgress the bounds of propriety?
And
The beauty of the whole misadventure is that she is unaccountable. She doesn?t have to answer to Parliament. And she doesn’t have to answer to a media that is running scared.
Welcome back, Congress!
While some sections of the media are scared, most of them are either turning a blind eye or covertly supporting these actions purposely. With the Pinkos having a huge say in the government, their supporters in the media–and the media is full of ‘em–are doing every bit to help advance their cause.
3. January 2005 - 3:38 PM
I keep wondering why the pro-BJP journalists like Swapan Dasgupta are continually “shocked” at this play of realpolitik. And Sonia is showing that she’s a master at the game. Much smarter than her dear husband and approching the skill levels of her mother-in-law.
She knew her becoming de jure Prime Minster would give the BJP a big stick to beat the new government. So she chose to be de facto Prime Minster. I would prefer her to be the person with the formal responsibility, but the reason why she is behind a curtain is the BJP and others who had an opposition to a “foreign-born” PM. Well, the lady’s largely responsible for the Congress’s revival and victory last May. Like it or not, she’s going to be the main mover. If she was de jure PM, at least she could be directly attacked for the failures of this government. That opportunity was lost when the BJP and it’s supporters opposed Sonia as PM. Well she’s PM — whether formally or not. And she prefers the power without the responsibility. Who wouldn’t.
3. January 2005 - 7:44 PM
Peru Asks Japan to Extradite Fujimori When I read this, I naturally remember the article written by Menka Gandhi, where she mentioned how some members of her family packed their bags and was ready to take shelter where else but in Italy, when Indira Gandhi lost elections.But we are Indians. And both, the literate and illiterate, both behave in the same manner. Falling for white skin, english spoken in different manner, smartness, sense of dresssing up…. and the uneducated lot for the style in which saree is tied, pallu intact, no chatak matak but sadagi, she drank water from our well…. So its not a miracle that this woman has captured the imagination of gawars and padhe likhe gaon ke gawars.