Opinion Lalitgate, the soap
Sushma Swaraj did a star turn on the floor of the House.
Sushma Swaraj with Lalit Modi during an IPL match in 2010. (Source: Express Archives)
Who needs Star and Zee when there’s Lok Sabha TV? Politics and theatre are often indivisible and on Thursday, embattled External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj showed why. Swaraj drew on the fine tradition of daytime soap to defend her actions in l’affaire Lalit Modi. In the story as she told it: an ailing woman, her trapped husband, the insensitive state and a noble humanitarian (herself). Following in the footsteps of the best two-hanky weepies, the minister painted the picture of a deepening family tragedy to shift attention from the serious accusations of breach of propriety levelled against her.
[related-post]
Swaraj has done something like this before. She is an old hand at turning a political fight into a tearjerker. The year was 1999, and she was contesting in Bellary against Sonia Gandhi, the “foreigner”. In 2004, when it became clear that the Congress would form the government at the Centre, she declared tremulously on the floor of the House that she would go into symbolic mourning if Gandhi became prime minister, by donning the garb of a Vrindavan widow: she would shave her head, she said, eat only channa, wear only white and sleep on the floor.
Swaraj did not have to go through with her threat, but probably only because Gandhi did one better. Sonia channelled the archetypal values of the self-effacing, self-sacrificing Indian woman to give in to her “inner voice”, appointed Manmohan Singh as prime minister in her own place. Swaraj should have known better than to lock horns with Sonia again. Yet, “What would Soniaji have done if she had been in my place?”, she asked in Lok Sabha on Thursday. This time, however, more in tune with the soap operatic tenor, son Rahul jumped into the fray: “My mother would not have acted like her.” Ekta Kapoor must be taking notes.
Share
