Digvijay Singh, a former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and one of the top influential people in UPA 2 has made it a habit of being in the news. Most of the times for the wrong reason. And whenever there is controversy related to terrorism he takes keen interest.
Diggi Raja has an interesting history. He led congress in Madhya Pradesh for two consecutive terms. The media impression during his rule were that he is a progressive chief minister. It was one of the marquee state governments of Indira Congress. It was portrayed as poster child. And even after his rule is over, media always glorified his years at the helm. On the back of being a successful chief minister, he was pretty powerful inside congress party. Though the generic idea that I got was that once he lost power, he slowly started moving away from the main stream of congress party. historically this was pretty much the fate of any one in congress who grows too powerful to be comfortable. He has been assigned multiple posts within the party. But his performance has been kind of away from the public glare. I think Congress at least in theory works in one person one post mode. He is one of the second rung leaders who are hand picked for ensuring that the party grows in future. So he will never participate in any government but will work on brining the party. He was one of the people working with Rahul Gandhi in UP. The luke warm response from Congress there again is being portrayed as a success by congress. This is because they can not afford to show that their prince - next - in - line - to - hereditary - stone has lost some thing. But they definitely could not achieve the internal goals they would have set for themselves. I do not have any problem with a party looking deep and planning for further in future rather than concentrating on the immediate elections at hand. For stability of India, the most national parties should have good presence in the Hindi heart lands. This will ensure that unity of the country is maintained. One of the short term approaches applied by Congress in general and Digvijay Singh in particular has been appeasement of terrorists from the district of Azamgarh. Most of the activities that are taken up by Diggy Raja there are bordering on supporting the terrorists and their families. But they have played their cards nicely till now and Diggy has always maintained that he was just talking to families and acting against alienation of the entire region where as congress has kept its distance from all this.
Diggi Raja recently has performed completely opposite to his history. He who once was known for his administration and long term decisions for the benefit of his states has stooped down to playing the religious politics and playing with fire using terrorists for these. And he has gone and done this again, this time it is the Mumbai 26/11 carnage.
There was always some thing burning. It is very interesting how he always finds himself in the middle of one controversy after another. Even when there are two independent events, he has managed to involve himself in both these.
There can be multiple reasons for this. It can be because congress is playing a very dangerous game of minority appeasement and Digvijay is the actor. And congress is silently trying to reap the benefits. If this turns sour, congress can always pull its card out and let all the blame fall on Diggy. This way he is one of the most important pieces in their strategy. The other angle can be that Diggi Raja has already been pushed to the long list of has-beens and it is his last bid to relevance. The party as such can not do much but stay completely neutral lest it can be considered to be supporting the fanatics.
But a has - been should only ensure that he takes up what he can handle. This can definitely blow up in congress's face pretty badly. So if it is Diggy's own game,his problem is that he is taking some thing up which he may not have strength to handle.
The worst part of all these is that this has hurt the cause of the martyrs, defeats the pressure on Pak and muddles already dirty picture. I am not sure whether the congress as well as Diggy knows the long term harm they are causing to the already torn fabric of the nation.
This particular approach, along with the inaction raises multiple questions. In the bigger picture the government has not done almost any thing about the terrorism issue. The security hawks in the government have been completely silenced or they have agreed to the general direction of using these events for appeasement and vote gathering.
This is deeply shameful. The country's integrity and sovereignty is at stake. At some level the reactions of then Maharashtra CM and deputy CM to the carnage can be attributed to short sightedness and political and national immaturity. But now there are signs that the congress party think tank has decided to use these events to their own goals.
But for a politician it is nothing new. Politics being art of the possible. But there is always a limit. Of all the failures of this version of UPA, the most biting is this change in strategy. Unfortunately the alternative to all this is equally bad and I see a very bleak picture for the nation ahead. There is not viable alternative to congress, which itself is completely collapsing under its own weight, when it is not crossing boundaries which it should not cross.
It is about time calmer heads and deeper thinkers prevailed.
