Author: V Sundaram
Publication: News Today
Date: April 28, 2006
URL: http://www.newstodaynet.com/2006sud/06apr/2804ss2.htm
The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Telugu Desam
Party (TDP) have rightly criticized the reported decision of the Election
Commission (EC) to drop the Office-of-Profit Case against Mrs.Sonia Gandhi
in the Office-of-Profit Case following her resignation from the Lok Sabha.
The Election Commission has sent its recommendation to the President for closing
the case against Mrs.Sonia Gandhi
SP General Secretary Amar Singh and TDP Parliamentary
Party Leader K.Y.Yerran Naidu have stated: 'Jaya Bachchan was disqualified
from the Rajya Sabha with retrospective effect. We demand that the same treatment
that has been meted out to Jaya Bachchan should also be meted out to Sonia
Gandhi.'
The matter is not so simple, harmless and
innocuous as the Election Commission or the Congress Party would have the
nation to believe so cosily in this matter. The Telegu Desam Party had submitted
a complaint to the Election Commission seeking disqualification of Sonia Gandhi,
Karan Singh, Kapila Vatsayan and Subbi Rami Reddy from parliament for holding
Offices-of-Profit. The Election Commission has now written to the Telugu Desam
Party asking them to substantiate the allegations against three leaders only
Karan Singh, Kapila Vatsayan and Subbi Rami Reddy. Is not the honour of Sonia
Gandhi more important and vital than the letter and spirit of the Indian Constitution?
The people of India would like to know why
Sonia Gandhi's name has been dropped by the Election Commission. If Jaya Bachchan
can be disqualified with retrospective effect, in what way is Mrs. Sonia Gandhi
enjoying a special status above the law of the Constitution? The straight
and simple course is for the Election Commission to apply the same law with
the same effect in the sane manner along the same channel for the same reason
and finally for the same result in respect of Sonia Gandhi as well. In Euclid's
geometry, one of the main axioms is that the shortest distance between two
points is a straight line. That seems to have been made applicable to Jaya
Bachchan by the Election Commission. But the Election Commission has not applied
pari passu mutatis mutandis the same axiom in respect of Mrs. Sonia Gandhi,
Karan Singh, Kapila Vatsayan and Subbi Rami Reddy. In respect of the Congress
Supreme-Weight of Sonia Gandhi who is above the Law of the Constitution apart
from all the other Laws of the Land the Election Commission would be guided
by the Oracular Axiom descending from No.1 Janpath which clearly lays down
informally, but no less emphatically as a word of command, in respect of Sonia
Gandhi and the other members of her family, the shortest distance between
two points IS NOT NOT EVER NOT A STRAIGHT LINE! This axiom has been applied
with enthusiastic, cavalier and military authoritarianism by the Election
Commission in a shameless manner in respect of Sonia Gandhi who is the de
facto Prime Minister of India. It is no small wonder that our non-descript
de jure Prime Minister (whom Winston Churchill would have loved to describe
as a 'sheep in sheep's skin'!) has chosen to describe Sonia Gandhi as the
tallest leader in India today!
Bias or prejudice is such an elusive condition
of the mind that it is most difficult, if not impossible, to always recognise
its existence. But here the Election Commission has left us in no doubt about
the fact that they are out and out for Sonia Gandhi and against everybody
else in this matter! Election Commission has become a shining symbol of barbarous
discrimination of the Middle Ages. As a former Civil Servant, if not as a
civil serpent(!), I know that discrimination is unavoidable in the Army, in
the Navy and the Air-force. In the Defence Services, some people must be assigned
to dangerous positions or missions; others have to be deployed in soft spots.
The Election Commission seems to follow such a policy in trying to bail out
Sonia Gandhi by trying to consign lesser mortals to their condemned places
of allotted death! The Election Commission is declaring with gusto to the
helpless people of India: 'Please understand that the difficult and exacting
choice between liking Sonia Gandhi and disliking others is legitimately arbitrary
if not unconstitutional. What cannot be cured has to be endured in the larger
interest of our own Offices-of Profit if not responsibility!'.
Seeing the dictatorial manner in which the
Election Commission is functioning today, I am reminded of the following beautiful
and prophetic words of immortal Abraham Lincoln, a non communal, a non-saffronised,
non-Hindu WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant!):
'Our progress in degeneracy appears to me
to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that ALL MEN ARE CREATED
EQUAL'. We now practically read it as 'all men are created equal, except Negroes
and foreigners. When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country
where they make no pretence of loving liberty to Russia, for instance, where
despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy'.
Bernard Shaw said my way of joking is to tell
the truth. The bitter truth is that in so far as our wretched country is concerned
today, the UPA Government and the Election Commission in India are treating
all the Indians as negroes and foreigners in the sense implied by Abraham
Lincoln in the above quotation and Sonia Gandhi as the one and only LEGITIMATE
AND PATRIOTIC INDIAN.
