It is a small, tentative step up a slippery slope. Still it calls for some cautious elation. That the jinxed Lokpal which has been stranded in the streets, entangled in bureaucratic red tape, buried many a time in political quicksands and defied consensus even amidst its champions has ultimately crossed the legislative threshold is itself an achievement.
Rewinding forward
Let me take the easy and lazy way out this time by resorting to some cut and paste journalism. I shall reproduce below some sections from this column written during the run up to the formation of AAP. Despite the possible irritations that an ‘I told you so’ smirk evokes, I will still do this because the issues discussed are even more relevant now.
If Delhi is India …
Some suspense always lingers during the time lag between voting and counting. Not so with the recent elections to five State assemblies. Sure, it is never a good idea to deem a future result as a foregone conclusion. But there is one strong reason why not just ‘scientific’ opinion/exit polls but even random guesses could turn out to be, er, approximately accurate: Congress! The disenchantment is so high that none bothered to survey Mizoram where the party might win!
A casualty count
A week of hectic judicial/legal activity has left a trail of victims, not all human. The Aarushi murder case crossed a threshold, the Sankararaman murder case came to a virtual closure and the Tehelka rape case attained critical mass. But acquittals, convictions or charge sheets apart, much collateral damage has been caused to certain other critical facets.
