Eleven MPs were expelled from Parliament. National leaders cutting across party lines are feeling very virtuous. They have proved by their actions that they have zero tolerance for corruption.
Eleven MPs were expelled from Parliament. National leaders cutting across party lines are feeling very virtuous. They have proved by their actions ...
Eleven MPs were expelled from Parliament. National leaders cutting across party lines are feeling very virtuous. They have proved by their actions that they have zero tolerance for corruption.
Left to themselves, our wise politicians rely only on courts of law. Until a law court convicts a politician they will not believe that he is guilty. But our stupid public has little faith in law courts. Cases in courts seem to go on and on. Then people forget all about them. What our public believes in is the camera. People see politicians accepting bribes on TV and to their simple uncomplicated minds that is proof enough of guilt. So while the CBI spends decades searching for the truth, the camera delivers it instantly to the people. Alas, politicians perforce depend on public support. So they must respect public perception. So out went the MPs.
For politicians and officials, expulsion or transfer or suspension is sufficient punishment. The criminal code doesn't apply to them. That's our unwritten law. So now that all the guilty have been punished, the remaining politicians are clean. The camera has never exposed them. There are chargesheets and allegations of course, but they count for nothing because the camera has never confirmed them.
The camera did not record a single shot of Laloo Yadav accepting money in the fodder scam. It did not record a single shot of any of the 42 national political leaders charged in the Jain hawala scam of pocketing any money. There is no scene on camera of Sonia Gandhi giving a letter to Natwar Singh, or of Natwar Singh meeting the Iraqi foreign minister, or of delivering that letter to Iraqi authorities. Why, there isn't even a single camera shot of the letter itself! How do we know it exists? And if it does, what was written on it? If there's no camera, there's no corruption. That's why all our leaders are clean.
The BSP went one step further than other parties. It expelled three MPs exposed by camera from the primary membership of the party. Mayawati, who has never been caught on camera accepting money in the Taj corridor case, or accepting money to build property owned by her brother worth over Rs 1,000 crore, promptly expelled her MPs.
The expelled MPs deserve no sympathy. They accepted those bribes. Worse, they lowered the stature of the MPs by accepting as little as Rs 5,000 per question. Worst of all, they were caught. The last was unforgivable!
(Puri can be reached at rajinderpuri2000@yahoo.com)