A senior leader of the Congress party made it an amazing stuff during an interview given to a local television channel. Answering to a question as how could he incite violence by telling some of his party men to keep some diesel and petrol ready for an eventuality!
The issue, when the same video had gone viral few days back , had, in fact, created a huge flutter in the political circle leading to a police case and getting the party image painted in red.
However, in the interview, a clip of which is being aired as a promo, it was shocking that the said Congress leader, Pradip Majhi, far from being apologetic, had his say something like this.
To the question that whether that was akin to inciting violence and is contrary to the Gandhian principle of non-violence, Majhi was prompt in advocating that, while talking of Gandhi, is all right but he will employ the philosophy of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose.
That was his defense. Leaders like Majhi, who expose their lack of erudition on the Netaji must invest some intellect to know that, what the Netaji was fighting for and against whom.
And what can be a worse irony if a second rung leader like Majhi of a beleaguered Congress party in Odisha can be audacious to claim a position at par with the Netaji, and dare to indulge in naked violence and glorify violence as his key theme of protest then, he can be pitied only.
It is the leaders like Majhi who in their pursuit to regain some relevance force in such criminal sounding fundamental structuring into a party which already has earned the bad reputation of getting criminalized down last some years in Odisha.
What is also puzzling that, in such interviews the questioners even fail to play the Devil’s Advocate and appear themselves coiled by a compulsions.
Risk in politics can be best played with a cushion of mandate and popularity and, Majhi now runs short of both. So, such leaders must learn to be defensive and not with a ferocity that has no sanity.
