Congress leader Salman Khurshid. (File)
Taking off from senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid’s remark about the party while speaking at the Aligarh Muslim University campus recently, the editorial in Organiser this week targets the Grand Old Party. The editorial argues that even though it was a part of appeasement politics and a means to prove himself more “secular” than his party, a prominent Congress leader while speaking at the AMU accepted that, “Congress has the stain of Muslim blood on its hands.”
The editorial then goes on to make the claim that the Nehru “clan”, which led the country for the most of years since Independence, has three types of stains on its head and hands. The first, the editorial says, is of nurturing a dynastic and undemocratic political culture. The Congress culture that revolved around the Nehru dynasty killed the party’s internal leadership development mechanism and became a model for other political groupings, especially ones based on regional aspirations.
The second stain on the Congress, Organiser claims, is the use of a divisive politics in order to hold on to power. “Dividing voters on regional, caste and religious lines and manipulating the first past the post system for the party advantage are the truth of the Congress culture. In the process, many divisive propositions of colonial rule were not only retained but further strengthened. The North-South divide, Aryan invasion theory, furthering caste divisions in the name downtrodden while handing over the power to dominant castes, fuelling communal strife in the name of ‘secularism’ and most importantly, negating whatever is indigenous in the name of modernity are the sins which the dynastic party cannot wash away. Naming and shaming Hindus by coining the terms like “saffron terror” is an addition of the last tenure,” the editorial asserts.
Now that is in Opposition, the Congress’s latest ploy has been to engage in a relentless attack on the judiciary to settle political scores, the editorial claims, adding that what the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress is doing while in Opposition is as dangerous as what Indira Gandhi tried to while in office. “First create doubts on the appointments of judges among common citizens, then, create and manipulate divisions within the judiciary, lobby with media, NGOs and PIL gangs to pressurise the judiciary to give or not to give verdicts in a particular way or at a particular time. All this is nothing but using the credible institutions like judiciary for political purpose. The judicial system or individual judges may have certain flaws but there are mechanisms to address them. The system of checks and balances is inherent in the Constitution and one should not disturb that for the political gains or losses,” rails the editorial and adds: “The question is not whether judiciary or judges can be questioned or not, the real issue is whether judiciary should be made the political battleground.”
Left’s tool
The editorial in Panchjanya also targets the Congress for its move to impeach the Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra, and claims that Congress president Rahul Gandhi has become a tool in the hands of the Left. The editorial says that the impeachment notice met the expected fate. What has become clear, Panchjanya claim, is that the lack of experience in Rahul Gandhi’s behaviour, despite his mature age, is now matched by a lack of gravitas in the Grand Old Party’s organisational behaviour. The editorial raises several questions over the impeachment notice: Did the Congress need to face such an embarrassment, which the party had to face while following directives of its chief? Isn’t there a single leader in the organisation capable of thinking independently without surrendering before the “family” on every matter?
“A healthy, active mind is needed to contemplate facts and analyse them with wisdom. But a strong spine is also necessary to present such thoughts at the internal platform of the organisation. Is there any spine, wisdom, coordination and maturity left inside the Congress? Probably not! Is there no one with a spine who advises Rahul? Probably, there is, because the names of Abhishek Manu Singhvi, P Chidambaram and Manmohan Singh were not in the list of Parliamentarians who supported the impeachment notice,” asserts the editorial. It adds that it remains to be seem whether the tactics of Yuvaraj (Rahul)— who has become tool for Left — takes Congress towards success or further decline.