The Prime Minister once again took a jibe at the Gandhis with pariwaarvaad. But is there a party free from it, the BJP included
The Prime Minister once again from the ramparts of Red Fort reminded the nation to root out dynasty and colonial mindset. The ‘pariwarvaad’ which the Prime Minister has talked about several times in his speeches once again figured in his speech on the 76th Independence Day. It was indeed a brilliant speech that hit all the right notes; from corruption to nepotism and doing away with the colonial mindset. While other messages were loud and clear for the people, his mentioning of the dynasty in his speech was indeed a veiled attack on the Nehru-Gandhi family. The Red Fort speech conventionally has been about what the Government has done and plans to do for the betterment of the people. The political messages have not been part of it and attacking the opponents from the ramparts of Red Fort does not augur well for a healthy democracy. For attacking the Opposition, there are numerous platforms available to the Prime Minister including Parliament. But since the Prime Minister chose to speak about it the reaction also came from the Opposition, surprisingly not from the Congress (Rahul Gandhi refused to comment on it) but from Aam Aadmi Party.
Manish Sisodia was quick to retort and remind the Prime Minister about his defaulter friends. Manish Sisodia did not mince words in saying if ‘pariwarvaad’ is bad so is ‘dostvaad’. Sisodia was categorical in pointing out how the Prime Minister waved off millions of loans his friends owed to Indian banks. ‘Dostvaad’ is the new word coined by him. Kejriwal also insisted that loans and taxes to the tune of `10 lakh crore of corporate friends are being written off. As they say, we choose our friends while family chooses us. We don’t live in a perfect world. Dynasty and nepotism is bad for democracy, it is the way things are in India and outside. The Kennedys and Bush family in America, Yadavs and Reddys in India are a case in point. Even numerous instances of ‘pariwaarvaad’ can be cited in the BJP itself. Piyush Goel, Anurag Thakur, Parvesh Verma would have a very different take. No matter how hard you try but still you cannot win elections in India on merit; caste and religion often are a better bet in elections merit. At the end of the day, what matters is how democratic a person is and how much he cares for the people who vote for him. Despots like Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin did not have a lineage. They weren’t democratic either.