Muscle Politician or Member of Parliament – MP

Two incidents in the recent past have re-confirmed my belief that most Indian Parliamentarians are Muscle showing Politicians (MP’s) rather than Members of Parliament who should be behaving with dignity given the august history of the Indian Parliament since independence. The first involved Justice Regupathi, who had stunned everyone on Monday by announcing in the open court that a Union minister had called him and tried to influence him to grant anticipatory bail to father-son duo, C Krishnamurthy and S Kiruba Shridhar, both of whom were booked by the CBI for allegedly using the services of a Pondicherry University official and a middle man to inflate the marks of the latter. The second involves M Jagannath representing Nagarkurnool constituency of Andhra Pradesh in the Lok Sabha, who was caught on camera slapping the manager of rural bank in Uppunu-tala in the limits of his constituency.

Both the incidents show gross disregard for norms of decency - forget the norms of democracy. It is a well established fact that there is a politician-bureaucrat-criminal nexus – if the judiciary starts getting influenced and coerced then we will be nothing more than a banana republic who the world admires for holding the largest “democratic” elections in the world. What use these elections if we have our elected leaders displaying muscle power instead of mental power and trying to influence the course of justice or honest discharge of one’s duties!

It is a gross impropriety for a politician or anyone to call up the judge regarding a pending case. It is interference in the course of justice and the Congress government should annul the MP’s election and send him to jail. The Parliamentary Privilege should be reviewed and no protection should be forthcoming from the Privilege’s Committee and the politician concerned – Jayalalitha has named telecom-scam tainted A Raja as the Union Cabinet Minister who made the call. Manmohan Singh, should show the same gumption he showed Zardari recently, and have Raja removed from his Ministry if it is proved that he made the call. When there was a threat to the judiciary, one of the pillars of democracy, why is the government silent? If judges are threatened, then there would be a serious law and order situation in the States.

M Jagannath, the MP from Andhra Pradesh was caught man-handling the Manager of a rural bank for allegedly not considering loan application from backward castes! I saw the pathetic sight of the manager being slapped during the news telecast last night and the Minister saying that he slapped the manager because the manager was drunk – the only person who was drunk was the Minister – drunk with power that is! I do not think we elect people for displaying such gross abuse of power. Just shows that the adage power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely holds true for our muscle politicians (MP’s)! The MP probably did not realize he was live on camera and tried to brazen his way out by stating that he intended to catch the shoulder of manager – what I saw on TV was a manager whose shirt buttons had been broken open and a tight slap given on the managers’ face. This guy should not be shown any mercy – he should be stripped of his seat in Parliament and sent to jail – no place for elected hooligans – at least after being elected they should display some decorum!

The banks staff had gone on strike and upon the Congress high command calling for details the parliamentarian has chickened out and apologized to the bank manager. Where is the need to apologize when as he claimed “he was only trying to put his arms around the managers’ shoulder?” The police have booked a case against the MP which should be taken to its logical conclusion – but I bet it will not be pursued and be allowed to drop, in which case the High Court of Andhra Pradesh should take suo motu cognizance of the case and take it up for hearing in the public interest!