4 June 2013
The political war in Chhattisgarh after the recent Naxal attack has taken a strange turn. A Congress-versus-BJP battle has become a Congress-versus-Congress internecine feud. The party has turned on itself following reports that the National Investigation Agency’s preliminary inquiries point to a Congress hand in the Naxal ambush that led to the death of 27 persons, including top state leaders.
The NIA’s needle of suspicion seems to be pointing at the faction led by former chief minister Ajit Jogi who, along with son Amit, was mysteriously absent when the convoy was ambushed by Naxals on 25 May.
The revelations have sent tempers soaring and Congress workers are now venting their wrath on Jogi loyalists in different parts of the state. They’ve hunted them down, locked them into rooms, beaten them mercilessly with shoes and iron rods, leaving several badly injured.
The fight followed Jogi loyalist and one of the two survivors of the attack, Congress MLA Kawasi Lakhma, to the corridors of the swanky Gurgaon hospital in which V C Shukla is being treated for the four gunshot wounds he sustained. Lakhma turned up to inquire about his condition and there, right outside the ICU where Shukla was lying, a Congress group led by union minister Charan Das Mahant, now the new state chief, waylaid him and beat him with shoes. There was complete pandemonium in what is supposed to be a silent zone, but the hospital staff did not dare intervene as the two Congress factions tried to settle scores. Later, a bleeding Lakhma was handed over to the police, who were instructed to dump him somewhere near Karnal.
Furious Sonia
Those who accompanied Congress president Sonia Gandhi to Chhattisgarh after the Naxal attack on a Congress convoy were stunned by the depth of her fury. Sonia is known as a composed, polite person. But in Raipur, she lost her cool with everyone, from chief minister Raman Singh to the chief secretary Sunil Kumar and other senior officials to her own party workers. “You are lying,” she is believed to have shouted at Sunil Kumar at one point. And as Raman Singh fumbled with weak explanations for the security lapse that led to the killings, she told him angrily that the Centre had the power to dismiss him “in one minute”, according to someone familiar with the discussions.
She didn’t calm down even at the Congress headquarters in Raipur, where she met surviving state leaders in small groups. Those waiting outside could hear her raised voice through the closed door as she gave vent to her agitation and distress. Perhaps, the killings were a sharp reminder of past tragedies in her life and cut too close to the bone for her to handle with equanimity.
‘Thankless’ media
There were many red faces in the official delegation that went with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Japan when a Hyderabad-based television channel telecast footage of senior babus having a night-out in Tokyo with the media contingent. As is tradition, the external publicity division of the ministry of external affairs arranged a dinner cruise for the media, to which officials accompanying the PM were also invited.
It would have gone down as just another XP dinner, except that the hosts had also arranged for live entertainment in the form of a Bollywood dance performance. The dancer, an Indian girl born and brought up in Japan, was full of oomph and her dance was provocative. At one point, she almost had a wardrobe malfunction too, after which the entertainment programme was called off.
When the delegation returned to the hotel, panicky aides informed them that footage of the evening had been telecast in Hyderabad, with the TV camera focusing closely on the dancer and the officials watching her. There was a huge furore that night. PMO officials breathed fire at the ministry of external affairs, which in turn came down heavily on the media group. The representative of the TV channel was taken to task and XP officials vowed to stop all hospitality for accompanying media persons on future trips.
The threat was put into action almost immediately. When the delegation landed at Bangkok on the way back from Tokyo, media persons were left to fend for themselves, without the cocktails and dinner usually showered on them.
Source: http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=459424&catid=39
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