Fly on the Wall
A Painful RAW Nerve
A highly senior officer of the country's top espionage agency was contemplating going to the USA on a private visit for a family function. Though he had retired from service after exemplary performance, he deemed it fit to bring to the notice of the powers that be about the impending visit. Within hours, he got the message that he should travel to the USA to his own peril as the situation is not conducive. In any adverse situation, the Government of India may not be able to help him. The on-going controversy relating to Khalistani activists in Canada and USA has created bad blood. The killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada by unknown assailants and plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannu in the USA were hogging the limelight. The USA has been pressing India hard to take action against those part of plotting the killing of Pannu in New York. India has assured the USA to act fast and set up a high-powered committee to probe the issue of alleged involvement of an Indian in the said plot. While Canada has given no evidence to support its charges against India, the USA is reported to have shared details about its investigation with the Indian Government. Several senior intelligence and security officials of the USA have also visited India in the recent past to press for action in the matter. Those in the know of things in the country' top espionage agency and security apparatus say that it will take longer than expected to resolve the issue. In the meantime, the two western countries will also take action against those giving open threats to wage a war against India.
Role of Non-State Actors
The hot pursuit policy may die a slow death in the Western world due to recent controversies. But there seems to be no let up in action against enemies of India hiding in Pakistan. Those responsible for anti-India activities and closely associated with wanted terrorists including Maulana Masood Azhar and others are on the run in Pakistan. Though the ISI had provided safe Heavens to some of them, yet many have been killed by unknown assailants in many cities of Pakistan. Interestingly, the Pakistani government has not blamed India for such killings. Reason ! The Pakistani leadership had coined a new term when attacks in Kargil took place during the Vajpayee era. Pakistan then washed its hands off saying it is the handiwork of “non-State Actors” and there is no involvement of the Army. Though the USA did intervene then and firmly told Pakistan to back off. It seems the same “Non-State Actors” term is haunting the ISI now. As many as two-dozen such Paki operatives have been killed in the past few months and Pakistan is keeping its fingers crossed. India is paying back to Pakistan in the same coin for spreading terrorism in J&K and other parts of India including attacking the Indian Parliament. The previous Congress & United Front governments at the Centre had looked the other way when India's spy network in Pakistan was being eliminated slowly.
A Ministerial Hara-kiri
Delhi's fire-brand Lok Sabha MP and Minister of State for External Affairs & Culture Meenakshi Lekhi created a flutter when she disowned a reply in the Lok Sabha attributed to her. She said that she never dealt with the parliamentary question at all and never signed the reply. The Lok Sabha is in session and still she chose to go public with the grievance on “X” (known as Twitter). The question asked was whether the government had any plans to declare Hamas a terrorist organization in India, and whether Israel had specifically asked New Delhi to do so. The unstarred question's reply was tabled in her name in the Lok Sabha on Friday last. Lekhi tagged External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with her post. In a separate post, Lekhi added: “Inquiry will reveal the culprit.” Political circles were aghast to see Meenakshi Lekhi tweeting about it. Article 75(3) of the Constitution says “the Council of Ministers shall be collectively responsible to the House of the People”, making it binding on every minister, senior or junior, to speak in one voice on government policy.
Some
of the Opposition members even moved an adjournment motion in the Lok
Sabha on the ground that Lekhi had violated the principle of
collective responsibility of the Council of Ministers. Insiders in
the Ministry of External Affairs say that all is not well in South
Block and something is amiss between Lekhi and her ministerial
colleagues. Though the spokesperson of the MEA, Arindam Bagchi
clarified that a technical correction was needed as the reply should
have been attributed to another junior Minister V. Muraleedharan.
There are umpteen number of examples when ministers give wrong
answers in Parliament and later tender apologies or senior ministers
or even the Prime Minister rising to correct their colleagues. But
what Lekhi had done is unprecedented and it seems more will unfold
after the Winter session of Parliament is over on December 22.
A flawed Logic
Political analysts are going gaga over PM Modi's choice of three new young faces for Chief Minister's post in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. No doubt, Vishnu Deo Sai (59 years) in Chhattisgarh, Mohan Yadav (58 years) in Madhya Pradesh and Bhajan Lal Sharma (56 years) in Rajasthan are pretty young. But in 2003 when the BJP won these states, the Atal-Advani team sent Raman Singh (52 years), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (44 years) and Vasundhararaje Scindia (50 years) as Chief Ministers. They were all relatively young, pipping all senior leaders in these states. If it's a generational change in the BJP in 2023, the same happened 20 years ago too.
