"But the Congress did the same" as a justification for all their own wrongdoings unites both the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government in Delhi and the Narendra Modi-led government at the centre. It is not only the lamest of all excuses, it is also an electoral oxymoron. Both won not because people saw something special in them, but because people wanted to defeat the Congress, and hoped to see in them something different from the Congress. They won because they appeared to be effective in their opposition to the Congress. Both slammed their way to power. And today, both use the so-called mistakes of the Congress as an excuse for their own.
When Arvind Kejriwal gets shamed by social media for getting school children to flash cards with his name at Independence Day celebrations in a Delhi stadium, his back room boys pull out undated pictures of similar formations with Sheila Dikshit's name and another with the name of Lieutenant Governor Najib Jung. These undated and unsourced pictures became Arvind's excuse to do the same. Let us assume for a moment that it may have been done when Ms Dikshit was in power. Why did it never get noticed then and why did it lead to such furore now?
It is Arvind Kejriwal who made breaking news out of otherwise simple concomitants for senior government functionaries like accommodation and red beacons and PSOs (personal security officers). If people judge him with a different yardstick now it is because he had claimed he was different.
If Sushma Swaraj faces uncomfortable questions on why she helped a fugitive, her excuse is 'the Congress had helped Warren Anderson in fleeing the country'. Here of course, she conveniently - or perhaps deliberately - forgets the role played by her colleague Arun Jaitley as Law Minister in the Vajpayee government. On September 25, 2001, Jaitley had opined against Anderson's extradition - 'It is not the case that Mr Anderson committed any act that led to the direct result of the leakage of gas and the consequent loss of lives and injuries.....there is no evidence that Mr Anderson had knowledge of design defects and violations of safety requirements, and yet he failed to take proper remedial measures."
Let us for a moment accept that all accusations of Sushma Swaraj against the Congress are true. Does a counter question amount to an answer? Just because the Congress may have done something improper, is she free to protect the interests of a man facing grave charges of financial misconduct? People reject a government based on perceived mistakes committed by them. If they have voted the BJP to power, is it fair that someone as senior as Ms Sushma Swaraj cites mistakes purported to have been committed by the Congress to condone her own? Arun Jaitley blames the UPA for not issuing a Red Corner Notice to bring back Lalit Modi or filing cases under FEMA (foreign exchange laws) and not under PMLA (money laundering laws). When the Delhi High Court restored Lalit Modi's passport in August 2014, what stopped the Enforcement Directorate under Arun Jaitley from filing an appeal? The authority to issue a notice of any color rests with the administrative ministry. If the UPA government failed to do so, why did it take 14 months and pressure from the opposition (which took a toll of crucial legislative commitments) and the media for this government to issue a Red Corner Notice against Lalit Modi?
Sushma's other excuse for helping Lalit Modi was that the Congress Party had helped Ottavio Quattrocchi escape. The fact of the matter is that on June 9, 2007, the extradition request by the Indian government was rejected by an Argentinean court on the grounds that his arrest warrant was based on unsubstantiated accusation and was arbitrary. The CBI ended up paying the legal fee of Quattrocchi, accused of being a prime player in the Bofors scam. When the then CBI director, Vijai Shankar, was asked if he was embarrassed by the order of the El Dorado Court, he replied "...Mr Arun Jaitley (as Law Minister in the Vajpayee cabinet) had prepared a weak case".
In their desperation to come to power, anti-Congress forces hurl wild allegations and then find it extremely difficult to take any case to its logical culmination.
For 17 years, anti-Congress forces used Bofors as their key plank against the party. In his rallies, VP Singh would go around showing a piece of paper with a number scribbled on it claiming it was the number of the Swiss bank account in which the money received from the Bofors kickbacks was parked. He promised that he would send Rajiv Gandhi behind bars in 100 days. When he became the Prime Minister, not only could he not deliver anything substantial on Bofors, he brought in the Mandal Commission report to shift the focus of the discourse from Bofors to caste-based reservations.
In 2004, when the Delhi High Court cleared the name of Rajiv Gandhi of any involvement in the Bofors case, the Congress Party demanded an apology from those who had sullied his image. In response to the demand, VP Singh innocently claimed he had never named Rajiv Gandhi in Bofors - this after tainting the Congress Party and Gandhi family to further his ambitions.
Instead of hiding behind the so-called errors of omission and commission of the Congress Party, the Modi government should perhaps do some research and emulate those policies of the Congress that have made the people send it to the Raisina Hills ten out of sixteen times.
(Pawan Khera is a political analyst with the Congress party.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.