Politicians are generally blessed with spring in their feet. The sacked railways minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, hours before he finally quit, covered a distance from his office to the lift, about 100 meters in all, at a speed that gave a near stampede. While reporters ran after him, 65-year-old Bansal was much younger than any of the scribes despite being hounded for about a week.
While politicians are thick-skinned, reporters are equally audacious in their pursuit to extract bytes. So, quite a few reporters forced themselves inside the lift, leaving ashen looking Bansal stunned. "You are not invited here. It's very unfair of the media," Bansal muttered.
Downstairs, Bansal's ambassador car was banged by cameramen, as he attempted to speed away. No bytes to confirm that he had resigned; but leaving scribes stunned of their own deeds.
Earlier in the day, reporters were watching tv channels flashing Bansal and his wife with a she-goat, giving a semblance of a little prayer. A dozing reporter was not excited. He texted a tv reporter standing firm at the residence of Bansal, that it should be a goat, as she-goat is never sacrificed.
"Abhi-abhi maalum chala hai ki ye bakri nahi bakra hai jiski bali dene ki taiyari hai (just confirmed that it's not a she-goat but a goat, which is on the way to be sacrificed)," a tv reporter shouted on a channel.
The message was picked fast by other channels and the story of a sacrificial goat became the story of the day.
A dozing reporter does not really switch off his fertile mind and has enough in him to set on fire wild imagination. So, the story of the goat and Bansal's sacrificial plan sent the media on a wild chase.
A day before, the sacked law minister Ashwani Kumar was being shown on news channels having met the Prime Minister. But the minister was maintaining that he had not met the Prime Minister.
The puzzle was solved by another reporter, with his reason that "Kumar must have gone to the PMO but the Prime Minister must have refused to meet him". In 10 minutes, this was on the channel. And later it was that Kumar met officials in the PMO.
But Bansal saga had the real masala to keep the channels on goose chase. He is a "mama", with his nephew landing him into a soup. So, the channels stationed their OB vans round the clock at his residence. Some of them were audacious enough to position high resolution lenses on the top of the OB vans, which were taking shots of even his bathrooms and toilets. "This is too much. There is something called privacy," an aide of Bansal pleaded with the channel, after which the bathrooms and toilets were not shown.
In about a week till Bansal quit, he became a parallel of the Princess Diana, whose death was blamed onto the insatiable interest of the media in her.
Six days after the CBI arrested the railway board member Mahesh Kumar and Bansal's nephew Vijay Singla in a Rs 90 lakh bribery case, the railways minister finally quit.
But just a couple of days before the arrests, Bansal was quite confident and had gone after Ashwani Kumar in a meeting of senior Congress leaders called by the law minister. "I am a collateral damage," Ashwani Kumar had told the huddle and sought better defence for him from the party.
"You are not a collateral damage. You are the main damage," quipped all the leaders, including Bansal, one by one in the meeting.
Future is quite unpredictable and so was the case with Bansal too, who also became the "main damage" for the party. But his case bewildered many within the Congress, as Bansal had apparently an image of a clean man.
Trying to understand Bansal's fall, one Cabinet minister took refuse in the dark underbelly of the Chandigarh man's quite large family. "Bansal has six sisters and as many brothers-in-law and going by an average of three off-springs, he must have had 21 nephews, beside his son. Also, his being a typical Punjabi baniya family, which is usually close knit, staying together, he was taken for a ride," proffered the minister in his defence.
Bansal is said to have told a reporter a couple of days back that "haramzadon ne 30 saal ka career barbaad kar diya (buggers destroyed my 30 years of political career)". Clearly, the political class will take a hard lesson to keep a close eye on the deeds of their relatives.
Conspiracy theory
The Punjabi quartet of Pawan Kumar Bansal, Ashwani Kumar, Kapil Sabbal and Manish Tiwari have been the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's men. There had been perceptibly corrupt ministers in railways earlier too, but the CBI had never dared to spread its dragnet on a Union minister. Out of four Chandigarh men, two have gone, after the Congress and its chief Sonia Gandhi cracked the whip.
Who benefits the most with the weakening of the Prime Minister? It's none other than the Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who knows in his heart that the Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha would not allow him to win the next Lok Sabha elections. It's the right time for Chidambaram to strike and position himself as the saviour of the sinking UPA ship.
Disclaimer: Journalists are infected with conspiracy theory virus too often. But enjoy the Pipli Live on news channels in the meantime.
In about a week till Bansal quit, he became a parallel of the Princess Diana, whose death was blamed onto the insatiable interest of the media in her.
Six days after the CBI arrested the railway board member Mahesh Kumar and Bansal's nephew Vijay Singla in a Rs 90 lakh bribery case, the railways minister finally quit.
But just a couple of days before the arrests, Bansal was quite confident and had gone after Ashwani Kumar in a meeting of senior Congress leaders called by the law minister. "I am a collateral damage," Ashwani Kumar had told the huddle and sought better defence for him from the party.
"You are not a collateral damage. You are the main damage," quipped all the leaders, including Bansal, one by one in the meeting.
Future is quite unpredictable and so was the case with Bansal too, who also became the "main damage" for the party. But his case bewildered many within the Congress, as Bansal had apparently an image of a clean man.
Trying to understand Bansal's fall, one Cabinet minister took refuse in the dark underbelly of the Chandigarh man's quite large family. "Bansal has six sisters and as many brothers-in-law and going by an average of three off-springs, he must have had 21 nephews, beside his son. Also, his being a typical Punjabi baniya family, which is usually close knit, staying together, he was taken for a ride," proffered the minister in his defence.
Bansal is said to have told a reporter a couple of days back that "haramzadon ne 30 saal ka career barbaad kar diya (buggers destroyed my 30 years of political career)". Clearly, the political class will take a hard lesson to keep a close eye on the deeds of their relatives.
Conspiracy theory
The Punjabi quartet of Pawan Kumar Bansal, Ashwani Kumar, Kapil Sabbal and Manish Tiwari have been the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's men. There had been perceptibly corrupt ministers in railways earlier too, but the CBI had never dared to spread its dragnet on a Union minister. Out of four Chandigarh men, two have gone, after the Congress and its chief Sonia Gandhi cracked the whip.
Who benefits the most with the weakening of the Prime Minister? It's none other than the Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who knows in his heart that the Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha would not allow him to win the next Lok Sabha elections. It's the right time for Chidambaram to strike and position himself as the saviour of the sinking UPA ship.
Disclaimer: Journalists are infected with conspiracy theory virus too often. But enjoy the Pipli Live on news channels in the meantime.
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