RAJESH SINGH
Rahul Gandhi claims he has “detailed information” to show Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “personal corruption”. The only problem, he says, is that he is not being “allowed” to speak in the Lok Sabha. So, this is the “quake” that the Congress vice president had been promising the past few days. One can only say: ‘Rahulji, please grow up’. Soon, he will be anointed as the head of the country’s oldest party which ruled the country for the better part since independence. What future does the Congress have if it is helmed by a chief who makes juvenile remarks and is taken with at best condescension and at worst amusement by not just his rivals but also by many within his own party (who naturally do not wish to come on record)?
Why has Rahul Gandhi been so keen to present the explosive content he supposedly has, in the Lok Sabha? He knows his party has effectively washed out the Winter Session over the issue of demonetisation, and that there is chaos in the House. He, therefore, is certain that he will not speak – unless something dramatically changes and he gets to say something on the last working days of the session. Even then, whatever he has to say can be said outside. His wild allegations will sound as wild even within the House. The only difference is that he cannot be hauled in the courts if he spreads canard in the Lok Sabha, since he will have the shield of immunity. But outside, he would be slapped with cases of defamation.
Rahul Gandhi has several options: He can go the courts, to the President, to the Central vigilance Commission. But he accords touching importance to Parliament, whose functioning, his party has disrupted since the Winter Session began. His respect for Parliament is matched only by his regard for Cabinet decisions. Not many years ago, he had publicly trashed an Ordinance his own party-led Government had approved, and said it was fit to be consigned to the “dustbin”. Finally, his ‘respect’ for the office of the Prime Minister was never in doubt even when his party’s senior leader Manmohan Singh headed the Government.
He is already facing a defamation case, in connection with the remark he made about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s alleged involvement in Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. His conduct on that issue has been in keeping with his flip-flop image. He had first stood his ground, then said he had not directly associated the RSS with the crime, and later reiterated his original stand. Rahul Gandhi’s problem is that he can neither identify a credible issue nor can he pursue it credibly. But it’s not the fault of the issue alone; his own credibility is at such a trough that anything he touches turns non-believable.
The material he has on the Prime Minister cannot be too much of a secret because he has claimed that Narendra Modi understands what he (Rahul Gandhi) possesses and is, therefore, “terrified”. Sure, the Prime Minister must not have slept over the days since knowing the atomic potency of the documents the Congress leader has gathered. The scepticism that Rahul Gandhi has invited by his immature conduct is of such magnitude that even the expert slanderer Arvind Kejriwal takes it with a pinch of salt. Never mind Kejriwal’s jibe that the Congress and the BJP were trading charges (the first on Modi and the second on AgustaWestland) in a friendly way and as part of a ‘fixed match’. But the Delhi Chief Minister has a point in wondering at Rahul Gandhi’s reluctance to come out in the open with the evidence the latter boasts of having against the Prime Minister.
According to media reports, none of the representatives of opposition parties who were in attendance at the briefing when Rahul Gandhi triggered the ‘explosion’ had any idea that the man in the spotlight would fling such a charge. They had assembled possibly hoping for yet more statements of condemnation of the Union Government on their latest target: Demonetisation. Quite a few, therefore, according to the media, squirmed in discomfort when Rahul Gandhi let loose his bag of unfounded accusation directed at the Prime Minister in person. After all, it is one thing for the opposition parties to criticise the Government on and even blame Prime Minister Modi for the aftermath of the demonetisation decision, but quite another to level direct allegations of graft against him.
Rahul Gandhi will do well to more closely follow the proceedings that are on in the Supreme Court, involving lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan and the non-governmental organisation, Common Cause. Bhushan, clearly motivated by his zeal to fix the Prime Minister, had claimed the involvement of Modi (then Gujarat’s Chief Minister) in a series of payoffs to politicians. A two-judge Bench of the court had, during an earlier hearing, sternly asked the petitioner to come up with credible material or else be prepared for the outcome. In the latter case, the judges advised the petitioner to take back the petition. The court had found the evidence which the NGO had presented as “fictitious” and of “zero” value. These two terms fit Rahul Gandhi admirably.
(The writer is editorial director of nationalistonline, English)