Death convict hangs herself !

I read the following comment by someone on CNN-IBN. "If a death convict commits suicide, do you call that sacrifice?" I guess this sums up Sonia Gandhi's decision to resign as MP and Chairman of NAC. She pretty much confessed her culpability by resigning when until yesterday the Congress Party was claiming that NAC chairmanship was not an office of profit. Now it remains to be seen whether the other accused especially Somnath Chatterjee will follow suit or the government is indeed going to bring the "shame" (as its dubbed now) ordinance.

Looking at the broader picture this was a classic example of political mismanagement or a boomeranged misadventure. Almost every political party and even the media is convinced that this "office of profit" law is stupid and has to be amended. Considering that it was a local congressman who filed a compliant against Jaya Bachchan, congress party should have seen this crisis coming and moved a bill at the start of this session itself to fix this law. Either the Congress/government leadership was so dumb or enjoying the predicament faced by Jaya (known to be on the hatelist of Sonia). Now they are paying for their shortsightedness. If they had atleast prevented the media leak regarding the ordinance, they would have escaped this embarrassment.

Consider the following two hypothetical scenarios. Abdul Kalam has already forwarded the complaints against Sonia and others to the Election Commission. Few days from now, the government passes an ordinance and sends it to Kalam. Will he sign it and send the EC on a wild goose chase? You first ask the EC to see if this person has violated a law and follow it with an ordinance to nullify whatever the EC decides! That would be a serious insult to a constitutional authority. Is Kalam capable of such demeanor? We may never get to know.

Sonia Gandhi has announced that she will seek reelection from Rae Bareily. Whenever that happens, BJP fields Varun Gandhi while SP and BSP field Muslim and Dalit candidates respectively. That would be interesting and I would bet Varun will have fair chance of toppling his Aunt's citadel. Then suddenly Sonia develops cold feet, pulls out and fields a youngster (maybe Priyanka). Then the Congressmen go to town, praising the 'supreme sacrifice' of their leader who renounced a certain reelection!

Wow...I love Indian Politics!