INDIA SCAMED!

SUNNY THOMAS

BJP wants to stall Parliament till the Prime Minister resigns, but Manmohan Singh will resign only in 2014! Should we conclude that BJP will continue its boycott till 2014? Mercifully, BJP was only launching its election campaign to 11 states, where its stakes are high. Is there a better place to launch an election campaign than Parliament – not by attending it but by boycotting it?  

BJP’s central leadership was threatened by the rising spectre of Narendra Modi, who could make them irrelevant. So to regain the central stage and to meet squarely the challenges of shadow prime ministers like Mamata, Mulayam, Naveen and Jaya, BJP’s top brass decided on a strategy to raise the decibel of their protests to the shrillest degree – not only annoying PMO but also Islamabad, Beijing and Colombo!   

`Empty vessels make the loudest noise’ is an adage long forgotten. By demonstrating the veracity of the adage, BJP is pitching its campaign slogan: Vote for Disruption.

Evidently, BJP is trying to hijack the anti-corruption platform, vacated by Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev, Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi. And coal that smear the blackest is Nature’s gift to the saffron party. The uproar in Parliament, specially designed for television cameras, will make some of its actors look like superstars on par with Sachin Tendukar, Shah Rukh Khan, Mary Kom or Saina Nehwal.  

Whatever Dr Manmohan Singh touches (even remotely) turns into a scam. And whatever King Midas touched turned into gold. Our television editors – Arnab Goswami, Rajdeep Sardesai, Prannoy Roy and Rahul Kanwal – are the alchemists who can turn a coalmine into a goldmine of investigative journalism!

Simply put, BJP is trying to shift its corruption capital from Bangalore to New Delhi, while Congress is trying to fortify its capital Delhi with scams without end. Good luck for both! 

Congress beats BJP in its own game of farce by introducing a Constitutional amendment bill when the House is in ruckus, and stage-manages – as is widely believed – a scuffle between two MPs for television cameras that stole the thunder from the boycott party.

The grapevine reports that Suresh Kalmadi is launching an organization called India Against Corruption, with Ashok Chavan and Spectrum Raja, to be ably assisted by Vijaya Kumar Malhotra (Kalmadi’s patron) and the BJP MP Ajay Sancheti who financed civilians for the Adarsh Co-oprative Society. Corruption hurts, and more than others them, and they want to root it out.  

Mulayam is looking for allies to float a third front, while Mamata is planning a fourth front, Jaya-Naveen combine a fifth front, and Pawar the loner a sixth front. Sangma is yet to decide whether he should start a seventh front; if he does, he will be the whole and soul of the front! Irrepressible prime ministerial ambition is giving sleepless nights to some of our leaders. 

Tell me what’s wrong with an honest Subodh Kant Sahay recommending his honest brother for an honest exploration of a coalmine? Tell me what’s wrong with a Vohra meeting a Singh, the Vohra in this case is Motilal Vohra and the Singh, Raman Singh, the perfect Congress-BJP hand-in-glove manoeuvre? You don’t believe it? Tell me who sent Anna Hazare packing and the Lokpal Bill sent into the deep freezer? Who placed Suresh Kalmadi at the apex sports body but the venerable BJP leader?

It’s not the hand anymore that’s ruling the country, but the hand-in-glove!

Punch line: Our scamsters will give a run for the money for the Somalian pirates who kidnap for petty ransom.