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- By Parinda News Bureau, March 24, 2006, 12:15 IST
The BJP headquarters celebrated on Thursday late afternoon as news of Sonia Gandhi's resignation spread. BJP general secretary and spokesman Arun Jaitley declared that '"Politics of revenge has recoiled."
The BJP was taking all the credit for this unexpected turn of events. As soon as TV channels and Internet media broke the news, Jaitley addressed a press conference with other BJP leaders and said that Sonia was a victim of her own party's conspiracy of subversion of the Constitution and Parliament and described her resignation as a 'face saving' device.
After consulting Advani in Varanasi, Rajnath Singh decided to convene an emergency meeting of central office-bearers of the party on Friday to chalk out the future course of action.
Jaitley pointed out that the Congress had itself opened a Pandora's box by disqualifying Jaya Bachchan from the Rajya Sabha. He said he wasn't surprised at the panic reaction which Sonia faced, a similar disqualification.
Jaitley ridiculed the government for its handling of the "office-for-profit' ordinance. He said it was "done in a ham handed and pathetic manner, just to save one person." In the process, the government was "caught red-handed trying to subvert the Constitution and Parliament."
He recalled how the law was amended with retrospective effect in 1975 to validate the election of Indira Gandhi.
"Unfortunately there was dictatorship in 1975. Fortunately India is a democracy in 2006. Media was suppressed in 1975 but media is free in 2006," Jaitley added. He, however, made it clear that the BJP was up in arms against the Ordinance, and not against amending the law on office of profit, provided it was not done with retrospective effect.
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