It was a – look at me, I am doing just fine – smile. It was evidence (if any was required) that he does not spend time worrying about the fact that an 128 year old organization (to be precise a branch of that old tree) which led India to freedom, “divided Pakistan into two” (his words) and brought computers and shopping malls to a shabby old socialist republic has been destroyed by a Naren Class neutron bomb- where all his supporters are dead but the buildings of a not-so-secular India are left standing.
………………
For many Indians — most Indians — Mr. Gandhi was the boy who had held on
to his father at his grandmother’s funeral in 1984. He was a “victim,”
who was forced to lead a barricaded life. In Uttar Pradesh, that had
sent his great-grandfather, grandmother and both parents to Parliament,
people were hopeful about him.
There, the Muslims had become tired of
the Samajwadi Party’s Mulayam Singh Yadav and had begun to snap at the
sheer mention of the Congress’ Salman Khurshid. Many among the Dalits
had begun to ask whether the Bahujan Samaj Party chief, Ms. Mayawati
cared more for them or her statues.
In 2004, Mr. Gandhi was 34; he was young and he was talking right. He
came across as an honest person who accepted he was at his position
because he belonged to the Gandhi family.
himself as the poor man’s friend; as someone who would always be ready
to bear a poor man’s load. But in the end, it was all reduced to a
farce.
secretary, Mr. Gandhi spent a night in Amethi in a hut belonging to a
Dalit woman, Sunita. During the recent campaigning, she told
mediapersons that after Mr. Gandhi’s visit, a job had been offered to
her husband from which he was later thrown out. She said she managed to
meet Mr. Gandhi after many failed attempts, but he wouldn’t even
recognise her.
constituency, this time accompanied by the then British Foreign
Secretary, David Miliband. “Look at me, I’m here to end all your woes,”
Mr. Gandhi told a shivering Shiv Kumari. The Congress workers brought
fresh mattresses and pillows for the two VIPs to sleep on. When they
left the next day, these too were taken away.
family was in bad shape and unable to pay an agricultural loan of
Rs.50,000.
his earnings since he left government were £9,85,315 — from “lucrative
directorships and speaking roles” (The report said that as a speaker,
Mr. Miliband commanded a fee of up to £20,000).
According to the affidavit submitted by Mr. Gandhi before the Election
Commission of India, the value of his assets has doubled in the last
five years. In Mr. Gandhi’s case, though, it is quite doubtful if there
will be someone willing to pay to hear him speak – except loyalists like
Satish Sharma or Rita Bahuguna.
getting elected from Amethi for the third consecutive time, a majority
of votes that made him victorious were essentially cast for his surname.
even after 10 years of attempting to prove that he is not incompetent
Mr. Gandhi still comes across as one?
The problem is that he chose to take shortcuts for everything,
including the prime ministership. The truth is that he thought he would
paradrop himself in the middle of a “cause” and leave his mark.
sleeves, people thought he meant business. But gradually, they lost
hope. Mr. Gandhi came and saw and thought he had conquered. But he had
not. The coterie of party sycophants that surrounded him never told him
so.
do a sleepover at Dalit houses. But they turned it into slapstick. Most
of them brought their own food and plates. In Kanpur, the minister,
Sriprakash Jaiswal brought his movie equipment along with his food and
bedding to a Dalit’s hut and left many hours before sunrise.
Jupiter to achieve success. But instead of offering them that impetus,
he kept revolving in his own orbit of vacuousness.
serious issues. In October 2011, he urged the Union Health Minister to
visit encephalitis-hit Gorakhpur. The command was followed. But next
year, 557 people died of the disease — the maximum fatality in five
years. We never heard a word from him.
party had introduced in a manner similar to how quacks at roadside
Himalayan dawakhanas speak of their “herbs” to cure venereal
diseases.
better India became a comic spectacle. He referred to poverty as a
“state of mind” and commented that “the poor can’t eat roads.”