Lalu always loved cattle. He enjoyed playing the rustic villager, the humble simpleton who rose against the mighty feudal lords of his land, and in all this he invoked bovine intervention very liberally. His animal farm was the launching pad for his foray into the political stage. But then he stretched his addiction to livestock a bit too far. He stabbed those very backs that helped him ride to power. Lalu looted in their name and what was due to them. Indeed, the current conviction in the fodder scam is less about law catching up with Lalu for ripping off the tax-payer or sundry beneficiaries of welfare schemes. It is the cattle’s cry for justice that has been answered. Who said anything about they being mute?
The scam had happened over many years, covered the terms of two CMs of opposing parties, ran into several crores of rupees and across many departments. But it was the Animal Husbandry dept that bore the brunt. The practised cattle-expert that he was, Lalu & Co found this portfolio the most fertile field to graze on. Crores were withdrawn and siphoned off on such outrageous pretexts that it is a wonder how the scamsters thought they could even get away with it. But they did prosper for 17 years after the scam got unearthed by a diligent IAS officer, with Lalu even enjoying power in the State, and Centre too, as a Cong ally! But then was he not a secular ‘porce’, to be pampered, come what may?
The animals have good reason to throw their dung on the face of Lalu and his like. Some samples of how the cowboy and his clan milked Bihar dry: Fake bills for fodder that was never fed to Lalu’s favourite friends; huge payments for ferrying cattle across towns in oil tankers, scooters and even police vans; lakhs of rupees polished off on the pretext of polishing the horns of buffaloes and goats; purchase of pigs that either never materialised or perished ‘in transit’ without a trace; hens that suddenly landed on government records only to vanish probably back into egg shells. I am not sure if there was any hanky-panky with donkeys. But if the scamsters claim they did not swallow such substantial sums, they must have eaten all that fodder and the livestock too, which is unlikely. Yes, Lalu has to be moved away from cattle country, for the sake and safety of cattle!
Moral: Never feast on cattle feed. It is injurious to political health. And the curse of cattle, starved of their fodder, can be fatal.
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Rahul undoubtedly has proved to be his mother’s son, not just in heeding her counsel but in deed too. Sonia revels in playing the holy cow, always distancing herself from unpleasant decisions and actions even while being the prime protagonist. Small wonder her holy calf, by leaping more than half way with a simple somersault on the pro-corrupt ordinance, has also shown himself an adept at hunting with the hounds and running with the hares. Jekyll and Hyde must have been a favourite bedtime childhood tale.
So, we are to believe that Rahul never even knew such an act was in the works. Which means he was incommunicado even with his mom who gave the clearance, not to mention cabinet ministers and PM, who are just vassals and a regent, respectively. And he has remained media-proof too, at a time when the media is at its voluble best. And of course, he had no inkling that the President entertained reservations and would have anyway sent back the ordinance. In short, if the corrupt in the country are now cowering in fear it is only owing to the holy cows and holy calves that run the nation by proxy and deem it their divine right to overrule and insult Constitutional offices!
Also, if righting wrongs is as easy as just ‘tearing up and throwing away’, there are indeed many such UPA monstrosities that need to be trashed. But is there a give away, a slip? With de facto ruling elites in such tearing hurry, and with habits dying hard, is it possible that the missing coal files were actually torn up and thrown away? And what of the fate of the Swindlers’ list of Swiss vintage gathering dust in official archives? Or the mountains of sleazy stuff the UPA has built its shady edifice on? And if indeed establishing probity in public life on the political pedestal is so simple a task, why not begin at Rome, er, home?
Well, the holy calf may seemingly have had the last laugh, but the joke is on the pet puppet, that is ever ready, rather keen, to take as many punches as come his way without flinching a bit. Namma PM …, namma PM …. Rrrromba Nallavar!
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