| by B. Raman
( October 12,
2012, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian ) After over 48 hours of panic over the
allegations levelled by Shri Arvind Kejriwal of India Against Corruption (IAC)
against Shri Robert Vadra, the husband of Ms.Priyanka Gandhi and the son-in-law
of Mrs.Sonia Gandi, the President of the Congress, the Congress has cooled down
and worked out a strategy of tiring out
the IAC in general and Shri Kejriwal in particular.
2. It is
reported that the initial panic was triggered by Mrs.Sonia Gandhi herself which
led to the unwise intervention of a number of senior Ministers in support of
Shri Vadra and the tactless remarks of Shri Vadra in his FB.
3. After this
initial spectacle of chicken-like panic, Ms.Priyanka Gandhi, who is concerned
over the likely impact of the allegations and the subsequent crisis management
on the credibility and political future of the family and the Congress,
reportedly stepped in to calm down the panic.
4.A new set of
crisis management advisers not haunted by memories of the old Bofors
controversy against Rajiv Gandhi, took advantage of certain evolving
characteristics of L’Affaire Vadra. Firstly, there has been no smoking gun so
far. Secondly, there has been no paper trail. Thirdly, Shri Vadra’s alleged involvement
was with a listed company and not with shady individual businessmen, either in
India or in the diaspora abroad. Fourthly, Shri Arvind Kejriwal, during his
first two Press conferences, seem to have fired all his bullets without
seriously hurting Shri Vadra. He does not appear to have any more unused
bullets at his disposal. And, fifthly, by announcing beforehand that he would
be exposing another prominent personality on October 16, Shri Kejriwal has set
a trap for himself. Whether he targets another prominent personality or tries
to re-use the same bullets against Shri Vadra, he will dilute the public focus
on the Sonia Gandhi family.
5. Congress
circles feel that the allegations made by Shri Kejriwal are nothing but
re-cycled versions of allegations made by a national business daily earlier
this year. Those allegations were not taken note of by the conventional
media---print or TV----, but were noted and exploited on the Net by a group of
NRIs, which has been carrying on a campaign against Mrs.Sonia Gandhi and her
family and in favour of the Hindutva organisations. This NRI group kept the
allegations re-cycled through various means and these have now been picked up
by Shri Kejriwal and his IAC. It is claimed that in addition to these re-cycled
allegations from the Net, there have been no new allegations in the charges
levelled by Shri Kejriwal.
6. These
Congress circles draw attention to the intriguing coincidence between the
campaign against Mrs. Sonia Gandhi unleashed by Shri Narendra Modi, Chief Minister
of Gujarat, on the issue of her foreign travel expenditure and the campaign
against Shri Vadra over his wealth unleashed by the IAC group. They suspect
that the same group of pro-Hindutva NRIs is the inspiring force behind both the
campaigns.
7. The initial
panic was also caused by the dramatic projection to the viewers by the TV
channels of the charges made by Shri
Kejriwal against Shri Vadra. This panic
has also since subsided. They point out how the TV pendulum dramatically
swung towards Anna Hazare during his fast in August last year and then equally
dramatically swung away from him when there were signs of agitation fatigue in
Mumbai where Anna went for the second stage of his campaign. They are hoping
that the TV pendulum, which has swung towards Shri Kejriwal, would similarly
swing away from him if he keeps re-cycling old allegations.
8. The new
strategy of the Congress is to give a long rope to Shri Kejriwal and not to do
anything in panic. Unless Shri Kejriwal is able to come out with a smoking gun
or new evidence, this strategy might work.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd),
Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director,
Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For
China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com
Twitter @SORBONNE75)
 After over 48 hours of panic over the allegations levelled by Shri ...){kind=link}