Mainstream Weekly

Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2009 > November 2009 > Outrageous!

Mainstream, Vol XLVII, No 48, November 14, 2009

Outrageous!

Editorial

Tuesday 17 November 2009, by SC

#socialtags

The results of the by-elections for 31 seats in seven State Assemblies and one Lok Sabha constituency in UP are before us. The Congress has won all the three seats in Kerala, two in Assam, one in Chhattisgarh, and one each in West Bengal, UP, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan—in all 10, while its ally, the Trinamul Congress, has captured all the seven seats it contested in West Bengal. So the UPA’s tally is 17. Among the non-UPA parties Mayawati’s BSP ruling UP emerged the clear winner bagging nine of the 11 seats where polls were held in the State; the principal Opposition party at the Centre, the BJP, won two seats, one each in Rajasthan and Himachal. The biggest losers were the SP in UP and the Left (primarily the CPM) in West Bengal and Kerala. The SP did not win a single seat in UP with its supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law losing the Lok Sabha seat in his home town of Firozabad; the seat was won by the Congress candidate, Raj Babbar, by a margin of 85.343 votes—the Congress’ success being attributed to Rahul Gandhi’s meticulous campaign. As for the CPM, it drew a blank losing all the six seats it contested in West Bengal, its biggest loss being the Kolkata seat held since 1977 by its highly popular Minister, the late Subhas Chakraborty, his wife having been trounced by the TMC by 28,360 votes.

The last few days have been witness to several other developments—the Chinese stepping up their bullying tactics by attacking both His Holiness the Dalai Lama and India in the wake of the former’s visit to Tawang; the startling relevations of the ‘Great Jharkhand Robbery’ by former Jharkhand CM Madhu Koda and his associates; and the misuse of parole by Jessica Lal’s killer, Manu Sharma, that has shocked civil society as a whole.

However, all these cannot match the outrageous behaviour of MNS legislators in the Maharashtra Assembly by attacking an SP MLA after seeking to block him from taking oath of office in Hindi and not Marathi; they have thereby not only added a new dimension in unparliamentary practice in a State Assembly but also demonstrated one of the worst forms of regional/linguistic chauvinism militating against democratic ethos and constitutional norms. What is a matter of deep concern is that forget any trace of remorse or regret over the incident, the perpetrators of such an act have been warmly complimented by the founder-leader and spokesperson of their party. And instead of expelling the concerned members and holding fresh elections at the earliest in the constituencies from where they have been elected, the Assembly just suspended them from membership of the House for four years leaving ample room for revoking the suspension as and when required. All this shows once more the depths to which our politicians have sunk in their search for and bid to retain power and pelf. The only silver-lining is the unequivocal condemnation of the incident by the intelligentsia and eminent citizens across the country.

In the light of such an unseemly spectacle in the State Legislature the obvious question uppermost in the minds of every person of goodwill resolved to preserve our unique composite culture and unity in diversity is: where are we heading as a nation?

November 12 S.C.

ISSN (Mainstream Online) : 2582-7316 | Privacy Policy|
Notice: Mainstream Weekly appears online only.