Congress sycophancy and twist of tale: Rahul’s double fall?

A section of media yesterday reported that two Muslim clerics, who were arrested last month from Mewat in Haryana, have accepted Lashkar-e-Toiba trying to recruit riot-hit youth in Muzaffarnagar area. Although the rest of the information regarding the arrests of these LeT operatives stood true, the information regarding these terrorists trying to avenge Muzaffarnagar riots stood completely false.

Delhi police special cell’s statement, which spoke only about these operatives trying to recruit youth from Muzaffarnagar, was blown out of proportion by the media. The media made it look like a victory of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi who had claimed presence of Pakistani intelligence agencies to woo youth of riot-hit Muzaffarnagar at one of his rallies in Indore, Madhya Pradesh.

However, a clarification by the home ministry on the matter put a full stop on such tall claims which had made everybody doubt their own decision in criticizing Rahul for his careless remarks. The home ministry released a statement on Tuesday saying that the two suspected LeT operatives had not approached the Muzaffarnagar riot victims as reported in a section of the media.

But the Congress party tried to take advantage of the situation till the time it could.

Congress leaders went all praises over Rahul, who was chided left, right and centre for his remarks earlier, and tried to take political advantage of the situation. The party said that Rahul was right in saying that such riots provided recruitment ground for the intelligence agencies of Pakistan.

Senior Congress leader and party general secretary Digvijay Singh was quick in making such claims and he reportedly told media: “If this information is correct that some persons from LeT had gone to the relief camps to lure refugees, then it proves right what honourable Rahulji had said.”

Manish Tewari was next in line to support their future PM aspirant along with Digvijay Singh and others. Targetting BJP, who had demanded a full report and a probe on the issue, Tewari had pulled out communal card againt it and said, “Those who believe in the politics of polarisation, who believe in the politics of communalism should become cognizant of the damage which they do to the idea of India.’’

Interestingly, all Congress leaders were chipping in for eulogizing Rahul without even checking whether the information was true or whether it was pre or post-riot activity by LeT. The fact that it is election time and Congress is afraid of Modi and unsure of Rahul Gandhi’s success, made the party overzealous in this momentous opportunity to glorify their leader.

Political commentator Sanjay Singh gave a very good reason for their blunder. He wrote in his article: “It had been acutely embarrassing for the Congress when Rahul Gandhi claimed in a rally in Indore that an Intelligence officer had revealed that the ISI was trying to recruit 15-20 riot-hit Muslim men in Muzaffarnagar. Not only had Narendra Modi immediately made it a big political issue, but several Muslim organisations had also criticised Rahul for branding the youth of the community as so easily attracted to terror. Perhaps that’s why it was natural for the senior leadership of the Congress to happily give sound bites hailing Rahul Gandhi’s depth of information and foresight.”

The fact is that Rahul Gandhi may have been paying surprise visits to the riot hit Mizaffarnagar and “advising” Uttar Pradesh’s Akhilesh Yadav government to “do more” for the victims, but he himself and his party never cared to do some goodwill work in the area. People do not like talking heads, they want relief. But Rahul and his Congress party has not been able to understand this.

Ruing centre-state relations and attacking state government may get you praises by some section of media but it will never be able to replace action on ground.

What is laughable is the fact that even if Rahul’s remark were to be true, Congress could not have gained much from it in terms of votes.

Constantly talking about Muslim victims and forgetting about the Jat community has also led to latter’s alienation from the party. The Jats have now completely deserted the Congress party and supported the BJP. Therefore, the Congress party is now working on a ploy to get back Jat votes by bringing them within the OBC category, extending to them reservations at the national level.

Also, the party is committing the same mistake it did with the Azamgarh in eastern UP. The party named the town as a terror recruitment hub few years back, and this time Rahul Gandhi has put Muzaffarnagar in Western UP into the same bracket as Azamgarh.

Congress has actually done nothing to regain the confidence of the Muslim community and Rahul’s remarks during earlier assembly elections led to further alienation of the community from the party.

When the news of Rahul being “right” had broke into the media, Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan had rejected it outrightly. “It is likely that all this has been done to prove Yuvraj’s (Rahul) claims true… or maybe it has really happened. This had to happen because this information was given by Gandhi way back, and Congress would do everything to make their yuvraj’s statement true. How come Rahul Gandhi was informed about something like this, and what sort of links does he have?” he had said.

We guess it’s time to say that Mr Khan was right and that Congress leaders sycophancy has lead to fall of their “dear Rahulji” again.