People's Democracy

EDITORIAL

A Diabolical Game Plan

AS we go to press the second consecutive parliament session since the UPA government assumed office has been thoroughly disrupted and set to be adjourned sine die a few days before the schedule. The first session which was to discuss and adopt the president’s address outlining the new government’s policies and priorities had to be adjourned without any formal debate. This is unprecedented in independent India’s parliamentary history. This session, the budget session, likewise ended without any debate on the serious budget proposals. Once again it is unprecedented that the finance bill should be passed without a debate.

Making a mockery of its own sermonising that the opposition should behave with responsibility in a parliamentary democracy, the BJP has brazenly resorted to such filibustering tactics. Clearly, this is part of a larger diabolical game plan that demonstrates a belligerence in seeking to destabilise a duly elected government. This belligerence can be witnessed outside the floor of parliament as well. Since its defeat in the general elections 2004, which it has not been able to either accept or explain till date, the BJP has avowedly fallen back upon its hardcore Hindutva agenda as the only avenue to regain at least some of its lost popular appeal.

The stridency with which it has taken up the issue of the “tainted” ministers, however vacuous and incredible that it may appear given its own standards of political immorality, boomeranged on them with the issuance of a non-bailable warrant against the Madhya Pradesh chief minister, Uma Bharti. Under similar circumstances, given the fact that Shibu Soren had resigned from the union cabinet, the BJP had no other option but to make Uma Bharti resign.

Given their proclivity to mount a fabricated propaganda the BJP is now seeking to portray that Uma Bharti was arrested in Hubli in 1994 for as noble a cause as hoisting the national flag. Nothing can be further from the truth. Elsewhere in the issue we give you the details of the Idgah maidan controversy in Hubli, Karnataka. A perusal of these facts clearly shows that in an effort to whip up communal polarisation and tensions, the BJP under Uma Bharti’s leadership brazenly violated the law of the land. The consequence of their action saw five people being killed and scores injured. The consequent communal tensions saw many more innocent lives being taken. It is on the charge of inciting communal passions that a case was booked against Uma Bharti. Following this, during the last ten years at least 18 times summons were issued for her and others to appear in the case. Normal mortals, if they refuse to appear following three summons, are slapped with an arrest warrant. Given this persistent refusal by Uma Bharti the lower court issued a non-bailable warrant, the veracity of which was upheld by the High Court. It is such a brazen attempt at whipping up communal passions that is sought to be projected by the BJP today as an expression of “patriotism” or “national” sentiment. This is nothing strange coming as it does from such forces who even whipped up such communal hatred whose flames consumed even the life of the Mahatma.

However, the people’s mandate in the General Election 2004 has put paid to such attempts by the BJP to garner political support by whipping up communal passions. The Indian people must clearly see the diabolic game plan of the RSS/BJP that seeks to subvert and hijack the people’s mandate by resorting to such antics. The law of the land must firmly take its course. The Indian people expect this new secular government at the centre as well as in the state of Karnataka to discharge its responsibility in upholding the Indian Constitution and bringing all culprits to book.