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BSP supremo Mayawati on Saturday spoke out on the disqualification of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as MP. However, in a stand different from other Opposition parties, she drew a parallel between the Congress and BJP. In a series of tweets, Mayawati saw the whole episode an example of “politics of selfishness” and made a reference to the Emergency.
“Due to the politics of extreme selfishness in most of the cases by the Congress and now the BJP government at every level, the work of removing the serious problems of poverty, unemployment and backwardness” have “not been given full attention”, Mayawati said, calling this “very sad and unfortunate”.
The BSP chief added that in this context, the Congress “must think whether what happened in 1975 was right and what is happening now with their leader Mr. Rahul Gandhi is also right”. “Political malice, hatred towards each other has neither benefited the country in the past nor is it going to happen in the future… So, it is clear that after the Independence of the country, in the last 75 years, if the different governments here had worked with honesty and integrity according to the sacred intention of the Constitution and democratic norms and traditions, then India would have become a truly leading and ideal humanitarian developed country.”
Speaking to reporters in Patna, JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan said the “hadbadi (haste)” with which Rahul had been disqualified showed that the Narendra Modi government “played an active role in the episode”. He added: “Due procedure should be followed in the disqualification of a member of Parliament and Legislature upon conviction in a case. There should be a notification from the Election Commission, on which the Lok Sabha Speaker should act after seeking the approval of the President.”
While this would have taken time, Rahul had been disqualified within 24 hours of his conviction, Lalan said. “This also shows the ruling dispensation’s baukhlahat (exasperation) and hataasha (desperation). But the people of the country are smart enough and they (the BJP) will be held to account.
Political strategist-turned-activist Prashant Kishor, who has been a trenchant critic of the Congress, told reporters: “I am not a legal expert but with due respect to the process of law, the sentence awarded to Rahul Gandhi seems to be excessive. In the heat of elections, people say all types of things. This was not the first instance and not going to be the last.”
Touring home state Bihar as part of his “Jan Suraaj” campaign, seen as a precursor to his plunge into active politics, Kishor added: “Two years in prison (for Rahul) seems to be excessive for what is essentially a defamation case. I would like to remind the government at the Centre of a famous line by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, that ‘Chhote mann se koi bada nahin ban jaata (Nobody becomes a great man with a petty heart)’. They (the BJP) are in power today. The onus was on them to have shown a big heart. They should have waited for a few days and allowed the aggrieved party to go in appeal and acted only if no relief was in sight.”
In a tweet, Sibal responded to BJP leaders’ counter-attack that Rahul had insulted OBCs with his remark saying “why do all thieves have the Modi surname”, which led to his conviction. “By making such an absurd allegation you are ‘insulting’ our intelligence,” he said.
Addressing the press at the Congress headquarters in Delhi, Congress general secretary K C Venugopal thanked “like-minded political parties” for supporting the Congress over Rahul’s disqualification, and said Opposition unity against the BJP-led Centre must be taken further.
– With PTI inputs
