Talking about Sonia

The editorial, though, sounds mild compared to the front page article entitled 8220;Revenge that boomeranged8221; by Sandhya Jain. She claims that the Congress president8217;s latest move is 8220;the fourth time Sonia Gandhi has run away from a thorny situation of her own making8221;. The first time was after the Janata victory in 1977 when 8220;panicked at a possible post-Mussolini scenario in this land8221;, she sought refuge in the Italian embassy. 8220;Newspaper pictures of her sour countenance remain etched in my memory,8221; claims Jain. The second time was when she 8220;quit in a sulk8221; when Sharad Pawar and P.A. Sangma raised the foreign origin issue. The third time, of course, was the May 18 2004 decision not to become prime minister. And now the fourth. Not satisfied with her decision to quit Parliament, Jain says her resignation 8220;should not prevent the Election Commission from deciding the issue of the legality of her presence in the Lok Sabha on merits sic8221;.

Sachar on Sonia

In a scoop of sorts, Organiser has reprinted an old article by Justice Retd Rajinder Sachar upholding the view that persons of foreign origins should be barred from becoming prime minister. The spotlight on Sachar8217;s alleged anti-Sonia bias is clearly aimed at embarrassing the UPA government which has appointed him to head the committee to study the socio-economic conditions of Muslims in India. But that the retired judge has no love lost for the saffron brigade also comes out in the article first published in 1999. Said Sachar: 8220;One feels distressed that many well-meaning persons, though rightly against Sangh Parivar8217;s communalism and obscurantism, are yet ignoring the equal danger of dynastic feudal zamindari politics being revived by the Congress party.8221;

Jinnah djinn

The RSS may have shown L.K. Advani the door for praising Mohammad Ali Jinnah, but columnist M.D. Nalapat insists that the djinn of Jinnah haunts 8212; believe it or not 8212; the Congress party. Claiming that the ideology of the Congress party is that of Jinnah, he writes: 8220;The man who was given Pakistan on a platter by the British remained a toady all his life, showing the same deference to foreign masters that the 8216;Manmohan Singh8217; government is exhibiting. Jinnah sought to separate the Muslims from the rest of India and make them see themselves as a separate people. This is precisely what recent policy pronouncements of UPA are ensuring. Jinnah ran his party and government as a personal dictatorship, very similar to the management style seen at present in the real source of authority over the UPA government.8221; Is Mr Advani listening?

Yatra politics

Having studiously ignored the BJP8217;s proposed twin yatras in the previous issues and without offering any editorial comment, Organiser finally carries a column 8212; by Advani loyalist Balbir Punj 8212; in defence of the 8220;Rashtriya Surakasha Yatra8221;. Repeating much of what Advani has already said about the aims of the yatra, Punj also gives the NDA credit for making the US understand India8217;s concerns about terrorism. 8220;The recent visit of President Bush, where Congress faced flaks sic from its Communist allies, but support from the BJP, had its groundwork laid down by ND8217;s policy,8221; he says.

Compiled by Manini Chatterjee