Terms of incivility

BJP quibbles over Pranabs signature,Congress wanted JPC to call Fernandes and Vajpayee

BJP quibbles over Pranabs signature,Congress wanted JPC to call Fernandes and Vajpayee

It was always clear that the presidential contest is going to be more revealing for its process than its outcome. Now,the BJPs prolonged carping on the matter of Pranab Mukherjees signature is threatening to turn it into a marker of graceless politics. Admittedly,Purno Sangma is faced with an unenviable task. To make a dent,or even to attract notice to his candidature,Sangma must make a noise,kick up some dust. Yet to insist,in the face of Mukherjees denials,that the signature on his letter of resignation from the Kolkata-based Indian Statistical Institute is forged,is to scrape the bottom of the barrel of oppositional tactics and stratagems. But the BJP is not alone in its small-mindedness. Including the names of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former defence minister George Fernandes in the now withdrawn list of witnesses to be summoned by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the spectrum allocation scam,has cast unflattering light on the Congress as well. The threat to put in the dock two senior leaders,confined to their homes because of illness and age,is spectacularly insensitive.

In a vivacious and argumentative democracy in which political competition is becoming more intense,there are bound to be the occasional indiscretions. In the states,the line that divides the oppositional from the uncivil is crossed far more frequently,and mostly it seems to bring no political penalties. Those involved in the blood feuds between Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh,or between the DMK and AIADMK in Tamil Nadu,or between the Badal family and Amarinder Singh in Punjab,have routinely cast aside a sense of proportion and decorum. But even by those low standards set in a culture of impunity,for the main opposition party at the Centre to reduce the presidential fight to an artificially induced quibble over a signature,and for the ruling party to show glaring disrespect to the incapacity of two senior leaders,is for politics to plumb new lows.

The Congress must ask itself if it is living up to the reputation it has so assiduously courted for NAC-style political correctness. And the BJP must wonder whether it is paying too high a price for what seems to be an outsourcing of its presidential campaign strategy to Subramanian Swamy who has patented the personalised political ambush. In a mature polity,the rules of engagement dont need to be spelt out or written down. They must be observed because it would be indecent not to.