Monday, July 07, 2008

Chindu lectures on BJP's overtures to SP for PM post

Democracy despite having a facade of simplicity often is mired in complexity. A recent shining example is how a party with a presence in just one state (SP) can alter the fortunes of a government in power(UPA).
The lack of commitment to any long term objectives beyond party coffers and power and the inability for any National front to get a convincing majority in the Lok Sabha makes todays enemies tomorrows allies.
All this is common knowledge, however Ms. Neena Vyas in a recent article in The Chindu decides to give a holier than thou sermon about the BJP's overtures to SP a few years back.
The overall premise of Ms. Vyas' article is that the BJP has done the country a disservice by attempting to barter votes for support for its Presidential candidates. She outlines the diabolical acts preceding this:
  1. NDA after losing the elections decided to block Sonia Gandhi despite having no legal grounds

  2. NDA attempted to get Kalam reelected as President but the Congress would not agree and with the support of Communists propped up Ms. Patil.


The second act was the tipping point, as per Ms. Vyas which lead Jaswant Singh to lead discussions with SP and other parties about bartering support for the Presidential candidate against the Prime Ministers post. This type of acts by the BJP is indicative of how low they had stooped just to get power.

Ms. Vyas what did you smoke before you started typing this hogwash?
In a multi party democracy like the one in India, every party has the Constitutional right to form alliances as needed to form governments, case in point the Communists after fighting the Congress in the elections deciding in 2004 to support the UPA just to spite the BJP. Why should the BJP's overtures to SP be treated any differently?

If the NDA decides that Dr. Kalam is a better candidate to represent the country, how does some precedent about no second terms set long term ago become relevant today?
Who would you have as President of India, the dynamic illustrious erudite Dr. Kalam or the bland puppet Ms.Patil? If anything the inability of the UPA and CPM to produce any candidate better than Ms. Patil shows how serious they were to have a qualified person as President of India.

Ms. Vyas makes an unsubstantiated claim about using the BJP using the President's powers to clip the wings of the UPA government,
A senior BJP leader confessed in private that the view was Mr. Shekhawat would win the contest and become President. Dr. Manmohan Singh would either resign or the Opposition would make sufficient noise to prevent the government from functioning. With Mr. Shekhawat in Rashtrapati Bhawan things could be managed in a way that would ensure the UPA term was cut short.


Ms,Vyas please provide some evidence before attempting to speak out of your behind. The BJP can clearly be accused of incompetence in managing the negotiations and PR once the news broke, but nothing was done which was against the Constitution, but the Chindu in putting together an editorial on this topic once again shows its anti-BJP bias and is desperately clutching at straws by providing a poorly constructed editorial.

13 comments:

Hindu Fundamentalist said...

Why is it right when Congress has an opportunistic alliance with SP but wrong when BJP attempts to do the same with UNPA? Neena Vyas is a habitual BJP baiter - her credentials to join the elite chindu team.

Anonymous said...

www.hindu.com/2008/07/08/stories/2008070854610800.htm

call to prop up a 'centrist' political formation, opposed to both the right(BJP),and - surprise - left (communists).

if the SP and shiv sena can be bankrolled for the deal, may be the chindu can be too.

Anonymous said...

Neena Gas is the more appropriate monicker. The lady is second to Harish Khare in pompous airheadedness, but scores over him in a certain skill: she can fabricate falsehoods, as demonstrated in the Sohrabuddin case.

cbcnn_Pilid said...

When K.R.Narayan was about to retire, The Hindu had no qualms about supporting him for a second term, precedent or no precedent. But when Kalam was about to retire, the paper was anxious to see him out of office, hence all those pious sentiments about no second term.

It is hard to believe that the BJP actually expected Shekhawat to win - there were numerous reports including, if I am correct, in this paper about the BJP leadership's awareness of his weak position numerically. But he was a revered and longstanding member of their party and they thought that they owed it to him to do whatever was in their power to enable his victory. For Vyas now to claim that the BJP was so deluded about its prospects at that time notwithstanding the obvious numerical disadvantage is plainly disingenious.

One other question: when Jayalalitha was in a war of attrition with the Vajpayee government, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, the then CPM general secretary, played a leading role in organizing the plot to bring down the government along with Subramanyam Swamy who organized the tea party with Sonia Gandhi that signalled the end of her alliance with the BJP. How holy was it for Surjeet to indulge in such covert manipulations to install a Congress-led government at the time?

Again, Mayawati apparently is now trying to break the SP by wooing ~12 MPs (about a third) from his party. By causing the fall of the Manmohan Singh government, she hopes to precipitate early elections that she calculates will see her party emerge as a major force at the Center with a large contigent of MPs from UP at her command. (see yesterday's Mail Today for details). Will Ms.Vyas express similar strong sentiments about Mayawati's unprincipled opposition to the nuclear deal as part of this gambit? There was not even a mention of these machinations in yesterday's paper let alone expecting any adverse comment on her.

Dirt Digger said...

HF,
You hit the nail on the head. It is simple lack of any journalistic principles to view the situation objectively and make judgments.
Had CPM done something similar, Chindu would've praised their patriotic intentions.
Hypocrisy is Chindu's first last and middle names.

Dirt Digger said...

Anon,
The article was published simply because Malini's still a power center within Chindu as a director but has little directional leverage.
Being a former editor and a person who writes once a while, she writes occasional pieces with little relevance. Question is what was she taking when SP and Shiv Sena can be considered centrist?

Dirt Digger said...

Anon,
Haha good one !!
Your nickname for Neena would be quite welcome here.

Dirt Digger said...

Pilid,
Thanks for detailing the hypocrisies of Neena. Her MO seems to be hit anything with BJP slant and avoid anything with a CPM slant.
I can almost envision LiC feeding her biscuits, like one of his Pomeranians after the letter was written.
She's one of those 60s-70s commies like Karat, Yechury, Brinda et al.
They are like mushrooms, just fed sh1t and kept in the dark - quoting Mark wahlberg.

Anonymous said...

It's interesting to see the so-called authors of this blog are also its sole readers and posters of comments, small club of backscratching pygmies getting off by mouthing inanities and carping on and on and on with your pet themese which nobody else really gives a toss about. More power to the Hindu.

Anonymous said...

>> It's interesting to see the so-called authors of this blog are also its sole readers and posters of comments, >>

Are you also one of the authors of this blog?

Or are you merely stupid?

Anonymous said...

he's stupid. and a comrade. but i'm repeating myself.

lal salaam

Dirt Digger said...

Maalas I.
Its surprising that you've actually managed to form a sentence with more than 2 adjectives. Maybe you got someone to write it for you, given than understanding the issues in this blog is definitely out of your league. Come up with a few solid arguments before you end up with egg on your face.

Kundan said...

Actually, so far I remember, The Hindu was never in support of Abdul Kalam, right from the beginning. I remember the articles of Ramchandra Guha where he revealed that the APJ hair cuts is basically a style and costs him thousand or so, implying that he does not lead a simple life as being circulated by some of the other newspapers. The nation was euphoric about his nomination, however,there was not a single article praising APJ. I would be happy to be provided the articles where there were kind words about APJ.