Sonia projects Cong as saviour

MUMBAI, MARCH 6: It was billed as the valedictory address to the Maharashtra Lawyer's Conference but Congress president Sonia Gandhi's ag...

MUMBAI, MARCH 6: It was billed as the valedictory address to the Maharashtra Lawyer’s Conference but Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s aggressive political speech bore the unmistakable stamp of an election campaign. Coupled with her address in Pulgaon, near Nagpur, earlier today, it was a clear signal that she was kick-starting the party for the state assembly election due in less than a year.

Without identifying the Shiv Sena and BJP, Gandhi said that “they (had) inspired the ingress which criminalisation has made into the politics of this state and this city”. The Congress must now sound clarion calls of “Protection for all and Justice for all” as people of Maharashtra make up their minds on “how thoroughly to end these terrible years of law-makers and law-breakers sitting on the same side of the table”.

Drawing applause several times for her observations on the criminalisation of Mumbai, the police and politics, Gandhi said that there is a virtual breakdown in civic life on the city becausecriminal elements have spread their tentacles all through the society. “Kidnapping, abduction and ransom were once the problems of the super-rich. Now an ordinary citizen is being held hostage to the nexus between the underworld and business, the underworld and trade union movement, the underworld and entertainment industry, the underworld and politics,” she said.

Gandhi called upon the legal cell of the party to work for judicial reform so that the judicial system becomes more responsive and accountable. Some of the overwhelming burden can be eased by setting up nyay panchayats and mohalla-level judicial institutions. “They are not a substitute for court decisions…but it might be possible to reserve the judicial process where litigation is unavoidable,” she said emphasising that the judicial system must be such that criminals are intimidated.

Till people’s faith is restored in the judicial system, criminality will continue to be a substitute for the law, she said referring to the extra-judicialauthorities like gangsters that seem to dispense justice. Unless the criminals fear the police and authority, they will be a law unto themselves and “they will impose jungle raj on lok raj”, Gandhi said. She touched upon the incidences of Mumbaiites having to cancel grand wedding arrangements, plans to buy car or house for the fear of extortionists.

“We have no expectations of the present state government taking any worthwhile steps in this direction in the few months of office that remain to them,” she stated referring to judicial reform and tackling the criminal nexus. Earlier, Sharad Pawar, declared that “it was time to kick away the state government”. He pointed out its scant respect for the Justice Srikrishna Commission report and called upon the legal community to lead the people against injustices as it had honourably done in the pre-Independence years. Pradesh Congress Committee Prataprao Bhosale and party leader and advocate Ramrao Adik also spoke on the occasion.