Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Shame, shame Indian

At long last the trust vote is over. And what a way ! The public is disgusted with the shameful drama that took place in Parliament yesterday. What was expected ultimately happened. The
Congress and its allies won the trust vote, purchasing votes with crores of rupees, hanging carrots
before criminals like Shibu Soren, who has been promised the Coal Ministry and his son a deputy
minister's berth. The world had eagerly watched the proceedings of the biggest Democracy.
I quote the Times of India, as I could not put it in a better way :
"Over the past several days, there's been a flood of stories of MPs on both sides being bribed to switch loyalty. The payoffs are reported to have ranged from Rs.3 crores for abstaining to Rs.25 crores for Cross-voting. On Tuesday, when three MPs started to disgorge stacks of money from a bag on the table of the House, allegedly given to them as "advance" for a much larger bribe, our worst suspicions seemed to have been confirmed.
We abrutally and re a nation proud of our democratic traditions. But along the way, our political class has systematically subverted every institution of democracy to a point where it has all but lost the faith of the people it was meant to serve. If the allegations made in Parliament are true, then the guilty must be made to pay a very serious price. And if they aren't, it would imply an extremely cynical conspiracy, for which there should be sevre retribution, too. The facts need to be established, and exemplary action taken. Anything less would be a betrayal of the nation's faith in democracy."

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