Opinion Hand of the bully

Of course, the Congress may have political reasons to be resentful of the AIMIM. Asaduddin Owaisi’s party is only a small outfit from Hyderabad, but its audacity and ambition have unsettled traditional claimants of the “Muslim vote”. The MIM’s foray in Bihar did not amount to much electorally, but the campaign in which the Congress labelled Owaisi’s party as a BJP-RSS stooge out to divide the “secular” vote has left a bitter after-taste. The Congress must know, however, that it cannot let its political gripe against Owaisi spill over into an outrage like the one in the Maharashtra assembly on Wednesday. It would do well to listen to what its own leader said in the Lok Sabha a few days ago. Party vice president Rahul Gandhi warned the government against attempts to raise the flag to silence and to intimidate: “Respecting the flag means respecting the opinion of every Indian… You cannot defend the Indian flag by destroying the relationships between our people”. His words had struck a chord in a political climate in which Kashmiri students on a university campus in Rajasthan must face the mob and be arrested because of rumours that they were cooking beef, even as two JNU students still languish in jail for participating in a campus event to commemorate the hanging of Afzal Guru where “anti-national” slogans were raised.

Congressmen may choose not to pay attention to Rahul Gandhi, but can Rahul Gandhi afford not to be mindful of his own words in Parliament? If he wants to be taken seriously, he must take note of his partymen’s role in the suspension of Pathan and hold them to account. There are many guilty men in the disgraceful episode in the Maharashtra assembly and the Congress cannot escape the blame.