Congress leaders are criticising the BJP for one of its cabinet ministers escorting terrorists to Kandahar to arrange for the release of airline passengers. The hostages returned home safely. On the other hand, many died in the Mumbai attack. The Congress claims that it did not negotiate with the terrorists. The real reason was probably that the command structures on both sides were so diffused that no one knew whom to begin negotiating with.
In any case, the two events juxtapose the priorities and the sense of values of the two political parties. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has made a sarcastic reference to LK Advani weeping when the Babri Masjid was demolished. The nation would like to know whether Manmohan Singh shed tears when he saw thousands of innocent men, women and children being slaughtered for no fault of theirs, in the country’s capital in the aftermath of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Did the thought of resigning from his job in protest against the inaction of the government ever cross his mind?
It took a few days after the CBI clean chit to Jagdish Tytler was covered extensively in the press for the prime minister to claim that he was not aware of the contents of the CBI report though the agency functions under him. He made a similar statement in the Quattrocchi affair. When he was finance minister in the early 1990s, he famously declared in Parliament that he would not lose his sleep over the tumultuous happenings in the stock market. He seems to still be in the sleeping mode.
A. Seshan, Mumbai
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