She came, she saw but we are not sure if she conquered. Sonia, now Soniaji in chaste European English did, however, impress us in her capacity as Rajiv’s widow if not as the sole torch bearer of the Congress campaign. She took us all through a painful walk down the memory lane to 21 May 1991, as she recalled her husband’s supreme sacrifice and said that this land was drenched in the blood of Rajiv. And we must add, his flesh too, as the gory photographs of the slain leader lying face down remain etched in memory to haunt forever.
Seven years later, those who perpetrated the heinous crime are still at large, though there is no secret about their identity. And those who patronised the masterminds and the killers alike, and thereby enabled the commission of the ghastly assassination are also very much around and in limelight, indictments notwithstanding. If the judicial courts have so far failed to bring to book the former, the people’s court is yet to deliver its verdict on the latter. It did do so once, in 1991 when they licked the dust at the hustings but only to bounce back in 1996, through an electoral accident. And the persons who allowed this accident to occur and quite wittingly, with fun knowledge of the ally’s dubious past were none other than the conscience keepers of the slain leader, those who identified the mangled corpse at Sriperumbudur as their beloved leader, those who followed him like the shadow, but were not around at that fateful second.
Those conscience keepers now have a different agenda. In seven years, the world has come several circles. So what if they also do a few turnarounds. And so it is that they find themselves in the company of those held directly responsible for the assassination of their leader. And as if that is enough, they have also replaced their dead leader with the one who facilitated the former’s exit. Again, so what? A dead man has no memories and is not going to come back for retribution. After all the world belongs to the living. And if those thriving are only the wolves and the hounds, then it makes sense to join them. In fact, it would be even more prudent to become one among them.
The slain leader’s blood line, of course is now in business, in the business of resurrecting a party which all but perished with him. They now have to do without the services of the conscience keepers, the trouble shooters and the interpreters who now have other errands to carry out. Having leased out their conscience for safe keeping with their ally, they are now busy shooting down the latter’s troubles, besides interpreting even blatant indictments to suit prevailing political exigencies. Of course the voice which acted as Rajiv’s voice in the vernacular tongue, the voice which boomed in Parliament to raise the alarm on the ominous portends of the pro-militant regime in the State and facilitated its demise. It is a pity that the voice has also joined the chorus, and decided to hunt with the you-know-who.
But if all this really pains and the heart reaches out to the gentle leader who met with a not so gentle death, there is something that happened yesterday, that hurts the senses and is even more baffling. Rather it is about something that did not happen. And that is the failure of Rajiv’s widow to invoke the Jain panel’s findings and her reluctance to even refer to it in the context of her husband’s killing at the same spot. There was no attack on those who stood squarely indicted by the panel, which has in fact necessitated this election and which is the only genuine poll plank the lady can lay claim to. There was not even a mention of the deserters who have thrown their lot with the wolves.
Quite intriguing and rather disconcerting. Has the lady decided to differ with Justice Jain or is it that there are even worse skeletons in the Congress cupboard? Has she forgiven the deserters or is she keeping the doors open for the prodigals to return, just in case, for a future eventuality? Or is she also convinced that in real politick a dead man’s memory does not count? Sad, very sad indeed, if Sonia’s silence kept tongues wagging all these days, her speech, if on the same lines as in Sriperurnbudur, will no doubt cause tales to be written.
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