Selective Amnesia!

Disgraced from the unassailable position of the President of the BJP and its Prime Ministerial candidate and still politically thriving as nominal chairman of a nominal group, BJP Parliamentary Party (although Sushma Swaraj as the Opposition Leader in Lok Sabha and Arun Jaitley in Rajya Sabha) senior BJP leader L.K.Advani was in Chennai on June 5, to attend the family wedding of two corporate honchos. The developments in New Delhi overnight forced him to hold a press conference to take on the UPA government at the Centre vis-à-vis Yoga Guru Ramdev’s theatrics.

The former Deputy Prime Minister of the erstwhile BJP-led NDA government at the Centre would have done well as a national leader, had he not unnecessarily made certain unwarranted comments about the Tamil Nadu Assembly election results, which became prominent for the servile newspapers here relegating the intended purpose of his holding the press meet. Holding that the ‘victory of ADMK in the Assembly elections was of considerable national significance’ he said he had congratulated Jayalalitha for her party’s victory. But for developments in Delhi, he would have liked to call on her and discuss the present political situation (Advani, after all, has experience with her ego, which would not have allowed her to call the senior national leader, at least in consideration of his age and experience). Why ADMK’s victory was of national ‘significance’? He said, “I had indicated that had it not been for her victory, it would have been said corruption was not a matter to voters.” Asked whether he would invite Jayalalitha to join hands with the BJP for the parliamentary elections, he said the situation had not yet come.

Advani’s remark that the victory of Jayalalitha is of ‘considerable national significance’ suggesting that she was a ‘crusader against corruption,’ makes it clear as to why his party dumped him from the position of national president and their prime ministerial candidate. For he seemed to have no ideas about ‘national importance’ and ‘corruption’ and the memory of the bitter experiences of the party and former Prime Minister and suave gentleman A.B.Vajpayee in handling Jayalalitha.

First of all, the BJP has no moral right to speak about corruption with their track record of, 1. their national President Bangaru Laxman receiving bundles of currency for arranging defence deals for a purported  intermediary, the scene caught in video camera and exposed on televisions, 2. their coalition regime indulging in corrupt deals even in defence purchases and for buying coffins for martyred soldiers, 3. the first ever Himalayan telecom scam unraveled when they were leading only a caretaker ministry at the centre in 1998 (when major policy decision are not supposed to be taken) by removing an unobliging (the then) Telecom Minister Jagmohan, the Prime Minister himself taking over the portfolio, writing-off charges due to the government from some leading mobile operators to the tune of Rs.60,000 crore and changing the policy for issue of licences in the cabinet meeting in which ADMK representatives were also present etc., Has Advani forgotten that for all those corruption charges placing even the security of the nation at stake, the BJP-led NDA was defeated in the 2004 Parliamentary elections, and again in 2009?

And associating Jayalalitha in the struggle against corruption and calling her poll victory as of ‘national importance’ is not just ridiculous but outrageously atrocious. Has Advani lost memory that Jayalalitha toppled a 13-month old coalition government at the Centre for its refusal to concede her one point demand of withdrawal of all corruption cases against her and causing an election again throughout the country incurring expenditure of thousands of crores. She proved to be a national disastrous force. That was why Vajpayee, in desperation said, “I committed the biggest blunder in my political life in associating with Jayalalitha. I will never again commit the blunder in the rest of my life.” Vajpayee kept his word and peacefully retired from active politics without taking any more risks. But Advani seems to justify Jayalalitha’s account about him that ‘he is suffering from selective amnesia’.