May 17, 2004
 

Shekhar Gupta admires the way Vajpayee has so many admirers even after 6 decades in politics and talks about the way ahead for Sonia.

Even as its now plainly obvious that Sonia Gandhi will be the next PM, the BJP and its partners in crime are keen on raking up the foreign origin issue forever. In a move that shows its obvious lack of grace in defeat, the BJP and its allies in the NDA will boycott Sonia Gandhi's swearing in. Vajpayee, as the predecessor will attend as the protocol demands so. From what I've read/heard about Vajpayee, he is too decent a man to need protocol to attend the swearing in and would have attended nevertheless. Sushma Swaraj, the behen-ji of the BJP cadre, announced a few days ago that she and her husband would resign from the Rajya Sabha if Sonia Gandhi became the PM because they couldn't bear the thought of addressing her as 'Madam Prime Minister'.

The whole business of foreign origin is bizarre. Political parties always take decisions on behalf of the people. Given the way our system of democracy is, i.e. a representative democracy, a decision taken by an MLA or MP allegedly represents the wishes of the thousands of people who fall under his constituency. You're affected by it, regardless of whether you voted the chap into power or not. Hence, the fact that the Congress and its allies got the majority implies that the majority of the people in the country (well at least those who voted) voted for these parties to govern them. The leader of the alliance becomes the Prime Minister. As simple as that. It is stupid to cast aspersions on either the intelligence of the electorate or the validity of the verdict. It must not be forgotten that the BJP (or the other constituents of the NDA government) could not do anything about Ms. Gandhi being the Leader of the Opposition. The BJP and its allies needs to introspect into why they ended up with nearly 90 seats lesser than in the 1999 elections.

Labels: sonia gandhi