Fishing in troubled waters
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 03 , 2013 -
That is what the ruling Congress and the Opposition BJP are doing at the moment.
Even as thousands of people affected by one of the worst natural disasters in recent times in Uttarakhand are still trying to piece together their shattered lives and the exact extent of the devastation caused is still not known, Congress and BJP have conveniently made the human tragedy into a melodrama through political bickering with charges and counter charges flying thick and hard among their leaders, not on the ground where they are required to work together in such time of crisis, but in the virtual world of twitter.
It all started on June 18 at about 8 pm when BJP leader and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, "Seeing extremely disturbing visuals of floods in Utarakhand.
We stand by the people during this hour & pray things get back to normal soon".
Within minutes of Modi's tweet, handlers of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's official twitter account responded with five tweets one after the other in quick succession to put on record that the Government had initiated action and Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh was seized of the matter.
Four days after this first rumbling of words of war on twitter, Modi undertook a widely publicised aerial tour of the worst hit towns, hamlets and villages and realising that Modi had been trying to extract political mileage, Congress went into offensive with party leader and Information Minister Manish Tiwari denouncing Modi as an opportunist trying to milk a tragedy for political reasons.
Today, the war on twitter between the Congress and the BJP has become full blown with every possible leader from both sides joining in to have their say through tweets.
In fact, to take on the supremacy of Modi and his other twitter-happy colleagues in BJP, Congress has deployed a team led by Human Resource Development Minister Sashi Tharoor, who is an old hand when it comes to tweeting in the micro-blogging site.
But the most unfortunate thing is that in the process of this war on twitter, the humanistic efforts of rescuing and rehabilitating the victims have been not only downplayed but also set aside the 'real issue' completely.
Even if it is true that the Government of Uttarakhand had taken considerable time in putting its act together in responding to the human crisis, it no time for blame-game or pointing fingers to score brownie points over each other with an eye on the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections due next year.
All the leaders in the ruling Congress and the Opposition BJP should understand that their busy blogging and flaying comments on Twitter could never be the substitute for action that is actually required on the field, and it is this action that would translate into votes during any election.
Stirring up a political controversy and trying to fish in troubled water even before the disaster has been mitigated, is indeed, low politics.
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