Thursday | 16 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Thursday | 16 January 2025 | Epaper

Pretender-prisoner Sasikala, 'no election' and White House imbeciles

Published : Friday, 17 February, 2017 at 12:00 AM  Count : 258
Syed Badrul Ahsan
India's Supreme Court has sent Sasikala, the pretender to the leadership of the state of Tamil Nadu, to prison for four years. Had J. Jayalalithaa been alive, she too would be going to jail with her companion. Both women, notorious for corrupt dealings, had been under investigation for years. Jayalalithaa, who earlier spent time in jail before being granted bail, is lucky mortality has seized her.
It is Sasikala's sudden ambition to be the new chief minister of Tamil Nadu which is quite amazing. Here is a woman with an imminent judicial verdict hanging over her and yet not worried at all about it. Did she really think that just because her party, the All-India Anna Dravida Munetra Kazagham (AIADMK), propelled her to its leadership after Jayalalithaa's passing and just because she suddenly decided that she needed to be chief minister as well the court would rule in her favour? It is the sheer audacity of upstart politicians like Sasikala --- and you find them all over the subcontinent --- which keeps on outraging us. Worse is when such women and men of unsavoury character are pandered to by their followers, indeed are raised to the level of near deities. Observe the madness of those who have in this past week fallen over backwards in their worship of Sasikala.
Mercifully, the court has stepped in to prevent such nonsense from going on any further. The good man O. Panneerselvam, who has been serving as Tamil Nadu's chief minister since the death of Jayalalithaa, should stay on. But that depends on whether those in the AIADMK who have for years glorified the thieving Jayalalithaa and more recently the equally grasping Sasikala are willing to see reason.
***
Professor Muhammad Yunus is once again in the news. With the Ontario Superior Court having reached the conclusion that there was no conspiracy of bribery or attempted bribery in the Padma Bridge affair, that indeed the case relating to it was based on gossip and rumour, demands have arisen once again for our Nobel laureate to answer questions about his alleged role in the entire affair.
Yunus has so far said not a word in his defence, though his followers have repeatedly denied all the allegations in the reports that have so far appeared in the media about him. There is at present an unseemly battle going on between him and the government. Ministers and lawmakers have been raising loud questions about the Nobel laureate's role in the making of the World Bank's decision regarding the Padma Bridge. If indeed there is a case to be built here, it is a proper inquiry more than verbal condemnation that is needed. Yunus should be explaining to the country if there is any truth to the allegation that he was instrumental in swaying the World Bank into making its decision. For the government, it is important that its functionaries go beyond the rhetoric and handle the situation in a cool manner.
Obviously, there must be a point where this Yunus affair should come to an end. Both the government and the Nobel laureate should be reaching out to each other, in the interest of the national image abroad. The more this war goes on, the bitter turn feelings among citizens.
As for the World Bank, we have not forgotten the wise Tajuddin Ahmad, who was convinced in the early stages of our independent nationhood that we did not need the Bank. If only we had listened to his counsel!
***
Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has been making interesting comments of late. If Khaleda Zia is convicted in the Zia Orphanage Trust case, he has said, and sent to prison, there will be no election. Now that is a discovery. Since when has there been the rule that sending a politician to jail on the basis of evidence testifying to her guilt will come in the way of general elections? The opposition BNP is forever calling for the rule of law to prevail, yet this threat from its secretary general about making sure there will be no election should the former Prime Minister land up in jail contradicts its position.
Mirza Alamgir ought to be more circumspect in his observation of politics in the country. He has made it known that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is critical of Professor Muhammad Yunus because she is jealous over his coming by the Nobel Prize for Peace. However did the BNP leader come to this conclusion? Such statements from a putatively responsible political figure slice away at the credibility of the one making them.
But the people making such statements, or throwing words about at random, simply do not seem to care. There is Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, who has now informed us that the BNP and also the country will never accept KM Nurul Huda as the new Chief Election Commissioner. Well, the new CEC has not even got down to business, has not had a chance to demonstrate his qualities of leadership as the head of the Election Commission.  That has not stopped Rizvi and his friends from condemning Nurul Huda. Imagine what they can and will do once the new Election Commission gets down to actual business.
***
Should we be saying anything about the Donald and his chaotic team in the White House? Just this, that for the very first time in American history an entire administration of imbeciles, powered by a curious combination of ignorance and arrogance, is running America.
Think of the newly departed Michael Flynn. Think of Sean Spicer. Think of Kellyanne Conway.  Think of Steve Bannon. Think of Donald Trump himself.
The only individual who seems to have a head on his shoulders is Vice President Mike Pence. Given the turmoil going on around Trump, should we be getting ready to see President Mike Pence in the White House?
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Associate Editor,
The Daily Observer




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