In the beginning, it was good entertainment. Jaya Bachchan was in the hot seat. It mattered little if, as a renowned actress, she needed no profit from being chairperson of a film advisory board in UP. It mattered less that she accepted no remuneration. The law must take its course. Congressmen snickered as she was disqualified from Parliament. Her complaints about being targeted because of a vendetta were met with broad smiles. Whispers of a silent war between the Gandhis and the Bachchans were loftily ignored.
But the morons forgot to do their homework. Suddenly, petitions against all MPs occupying offices of profit started reaching President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Those who occupied such offices undisturbed for several decades were among them. Vijay Malhotra, for instance. The President forwarded all petitions to the EC. The legal route had already been marked by the Bachchan case.
A large number of VIPs were affected. Holy moly! The biggest VVIP was among them! Once again, there was a panic response without proper homework. Sonia Gandhi resigned as MP and as chairperson of the National Advisory Council. Better to wear the halo of saintly renunciation than to sweat under a cloud of imminent disqualification.
Poor Sonia! She should have known her party better. As petitions against MPs and MLAs holding offices of profit started pouring in from state after state, the situation became farcical. On a conservative estimate, the total number of legislators holding offices of profit would cross a hundred. So what could be the remedy? Over a hundred disqualifications followed by a hundred byelections? Of course not!
The crisis affects legislators, remember? They are the ones who make and unmake laws, remember? So the cabinet met. Government and opposition met. Opposition and opposition met. The law could be changed. It could be scrapped. Parliament will decide after May 10.
Meanwhile, the EC will delay all pending cases until Parliament makes a new bill. That bill will protect MPs. Only Sonia suffers. Mulayam Singh laughs all the way to his votebank. Who says there’s no karmic law?
(Puri can be reached at rajinderpuri2000@yahoo.com)
