03-31-2006, 05:12 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Title: Soniaâs new technique
Author:Â Editorial
Publication: Free Press Journal
Date: March 30, 2006
http://www.samachar.com/features/300306-editorial.html
<b>Sonia's new technique </b>
Self-flagellation is still considered an easy route to martyrdom among certain African tribes. Whether it will keep up the tempo in Rae Bareli is doubtful. Sonia Gandhi has no doubt learnt a lot from Indira Gandhi's grand-standing posture. But Indira Gandhi also knew to adjust it to the changing audiences, views and political climate.
Whether Sonia Gandhi has come that far in manipulating crowd psychology is a moot point. She has gone to her constituency to seek re-election which, in the absence of any unforeseen accidents, will come through. So it is no use posing as a martyr or enemy no. 1 of the opposition or being targeted by one and all in parliament and outside in order to seek the protection of her constituency. It sounds like furious anger against all those who misled her to resign.
Even on Thursday last, her minister of parliamentary affairs could have contacted all the opposition leaders and come to a workable MoU, as he has done now. Where Sonia overstepped her limits of power and prestige is when she hustled people (or agreed with her claque) to get ready with an ordinance. And the proroguing of Parliament is one of the costliest blunders that she can commit.
Which clearly shows that she can do anything with Parliament and get away with it. It is astonishing that not a single flatterer at 10 Janpath saw the utter unparliamentary nature of the ordinance. Their presumption that a President like Abdul Kalam would sign on the dotted line is outrageous.
Now even some members of the Congress think-tank feel that the National Advisory Council is superfluous. It merely served to foist Sonia Gandhi over the Prime Minister. Supreme power without any responsibility. Where were all her pangs of morality when she or her advisers sent the law minister's men to defreeze Ottavio Quattrocchi's bank account in London?
How did she react to the Volcker report? Why did she hold a watching brief to install her son as the de facto successor to her at the Hyderabad AICC? What happens to more bright young MPs who have done something for the country?
Does Sonia know anything about the unseating of Jaya Bachchan, the ramifications of which are swirling the Congress? Moral indignation is not a one-way street. Nor moral challenge. Let her know that nobody is targeting her exclusively. It is all part of the rough and tumble of politics. Some you win. Some you lose. Sonia Gandhi should learn to take the rough with the smooth in her stride.
However, if she thinks that her antics in Rae Bareli would change Congress fortunes in UP, she is mistaken. A clear indication of this emerged from the kind of people who were seated with her on the platform. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Author:Â Editorial
Publication: Free Press Journal
Date: March 30, 2006
http://www.samachar.com/features/300306-editorial.html
<b>Sonia's new technique </b>
Self-flagellation is still considered an easy route to martyrdom among certain African tribes. Whether it will keep up the tempo in Rae Bareli is doubtful. Sonia Gandhi has no doubt learnt a lot from Indira Gandhi's grand-standing posture. But Indira Gandhi also knew to adjust it to the changing audiences, views and political climate.
Whether Sonia Gandhi has come that far in manipulating crowd psychology is a moot point. She has gone to her constituency to seek re-election which, in the absence of any unforeseen accidents, will come through. So it is no use posing as a martyr or enemy no. 1 of the opposition or being targeted by one and all in parliament and outside in order to seek the protection of her constituency. It sounds like furious anger against all those who misled her to resign.
Even on Thursday last, her minister of parliamentary affairs could have contacted all the opposition leaders and come to a workable MoU, as he has done now. Where Sonia overstepped her limits of power and prestige is when she hustled people (or agreed with her claque) to get ready with an ordinance. And the proroguing of Parliament is one of the costliest blunders that she can commit.
Which clearly shows that she can do anything with Parliament and get away with it. It is astonishing that not a single flatterer at 10 Janpath saw the utter unparliamentary nature of the ordinance. Their presumption that a President like Abdul Kalam would sign on the dotted line is outrageous.
Now even some members of the Congress think-tank feel that the National Advisory Council is superfluous. It merely served to foist Sonia Gandhi over the Prime Minister. Supreme power without any responsibility. Where were all her pangs of morality when she or her advisers sent the law minister's men to defreeze Ottavio Quattrocchi's bank account in London?
How did she react to the Volcker report? Why did she hold a watching brief to install her son as the de facto successor to her at the Hyderabad AICC? What happens to more bright young MPs who have done something for the country?
Does Sonia know anything about the unseating of Jaya Bachchan, the ramifications of which are swirling the Congress? Moral indignation is not a one-way street. Nor moral challenge. Let her know that nobody is targeting her exclusively. It is all part of the rough and tumble of politics. Some you win. Some you lose. Sonia Gandhi should learn to take the rough with the smooth in her stride.
However, if she thinks that her antics in Rae Bareli would change Congress fortunes in UP, she is mistaken. A clear indication of this emerged from the kind of people who were seated with her on the platform. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->