SANJAY K JHA AND RASHEED KIDWAI
New Delhi, April 14: The morning showed the night.
L.K. Advani stayed away from a dinner hosted by the Prime Minister tonight after an icy encounter in the morning when the two leaders shook hands but did not speak.
The decision to skip the farewell dinner for Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee follows a war of words over the past few days between Advani and Manmohan Singh, who made no eye contact for most of the 15-20 minutes they were together in Parliament House today for the birth anniversary of B.R. Ambedkar.
Sources in the BJP, however, said the Prime Minister was the reason for Advani’s absence, not Somnath or the review meeting. The BJP’s candidate for Prime Minister, “hurt” that Manmohan had hit back at Advani for calling him “weak”, felt slighted this morning, the sources said.
Although the two did shake hands when their eyes met, no one present saw the leaders exchange a word. Both greeted other leaders, and Manmohan chatted with Vice-President Hamid Ansari, but was not seen speaking to Advani who sat in between. A photograph showed the Prime Minister speaking and the BJP leader listening, but it was not clear who Manmohan was addressing.
At one point, Advani, usually seen with hands folded, looked as if he was approaching the Prime Minister but then greeted other guests. Manmohan appeared not to have seen him.
So bitter has been their fight over the past days that even if there was no deliberate chill, onlookers sensed one.
The Congress denied any slight. ‘The Prime Minister has been in public life for years and he has always been known to be humble. He is a gentleman who observes all courtesies,” party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said.
Singhvi added: “Let me assure you that the Prime Minister will continue to observe all constitutional responsibilities and decorum.”
A Congress functionary questioned the absence of Advani, who is the leader of the Opposition, from the dinner in the Speaker’s honour.
Advani today accused the Congress of not doing justice to Ambedkar, and the Prime Minister replied that the party always viewed “Ambedkar as a pathfinder and the architect of the Indian Constitution. The Congress party has the greatest of respect for him.”
Priyanka Gandhi, campaigning in Amethi, described Advani’s remark as “a completely futile accusation.”
At Mandla in Madhya Pradesh, Sonia Gandhi targeted Advani for questioning Manmohan’s credentials, and again brought up his conduct during the Kandahar hijack.
Rahul Gandhi in Bathinda described Manmohan as “Sher-e-Punjab (Lion of Punjab)”, a title normally reserved for legendary 18th century ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
The fightback as a team, in evidence over the past few days, appears to have rattled the BJP, which is now insisting its campaign calling Manmohan the “weakest Prime Minister” was not personal.
While Arun Jaitley and Narendra Modi have welcomed the face-off, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad decried it as the Congress’s attempt to divert attention from the real issues.
We should not read much in the above photograph of two great men.
One was the governor of Reserve Bank of India, Finance Minister and Prime Minister of India.
The other was Home Minister, Deputy Pime Minister and Leader of Opposition in Parliament.
Both of them aspire to be Prime Ministers after the coming elections.
The photographer probably forgot to tell them "cheese" while clicking the camera.
I hope that is the reason for the iciness.
However, if it is genuine then I regret why they are showing the iciness.
The general population should be showing them iciness.
We are fed up with the way they have both campaigned.
Instead of bringing up genuine issues they have been calling each other names.
Advani says " he is the weakest PM", "he takes orders from Sonia " etc etc.
Man Mohan Singh says "why did he cry", "why did he release terrorists" etc.
They have skirted genuine issues like
POPULATION EXPLOSION
CORRUPTION
No genuine effort is being made to control our population.
The fruits of any development that we make is frittered because of our explosive population growth.
China, with a larger population has been able to conrol their population by introducing the one-child norm.
After the recent earthquake which devastated China, those parents who had lost their children had to get special permission from the government to have additional children.
Why does not India do it?
Why don't our communist friends Karat & company advise our government to introduce the same norms in India?
Is it because, the more the population, the more the chaos and that would benefit them and their long term plans.
Is it because of the failed experiment of Sanjay Gandhi and "Nasbandhi"?
Now no party even broaches the subject for fear of disturbing their vote bank.
Is it because people like Lalu Yadav are in the government, with 10 children, how can they ask the others to control the number of children.
WE SHOULD FOLLOW THE CHINESE LAW WORD FOR WORD IN THIS MATTER.
CORRUPTION:
This is the second most important point on which our government should focus.
Corruption gains are made by those people who already have plenty. Government employees, politicians and people in certain posts in private organisations.
This makes everthing expensive for the costs are added .
The MP / MLA has to get back the money he spent on his election with interest rates which would shame even Shylock.
The governement employee has to pay bribe to get the most lucrative posting.
He then milks the public to get his returns.
The chain thus goes on.
WHY HAVE NOT OUR LEADERS SAID ANYTHING ABOUT THESE TWO BURNING ISSUES?
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