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The Rediff Column/V C Bhaskaran

Rajiv's blood and saffron spectre

It is well known that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam had a free run in Tamil Nadu when the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham was in power in the state. But its alleged role in former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination is something hard to swallow.

This finding of the Jain Commission in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case sent shivers down the spine of the ruling United Front which was still grappling with the shock of the Bharatiya Janata Party snatching power in Uttar Pradesh and its threats to destablise the Inder Kumar Gujral government.

In one stroke, the UF's plan to launch a nationwide campaign to ''expose the BJP's political immorality'' has been thrown to the back burner.

The burning issue now is the UF's survival, following the clamour in the Congress that the support to the Gujral government should be withdrawn. The Congress is furious with the UF's adamant stand on protecting the DMK.

The DMK and its supremo Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi stand exposed like Brutus. And in its anxiety to protect itself, the UF has chosen to back Brutus, at least going by its convener and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu's statement. Speaking to the media at Madras, Naidu said, ''The DMK has committed no wrong.'' He said the Commission itself could have leaked the report.

Karunanidhi had gone a step further. He said that the report was not leaked, but ''released'' by the Commission itself.

Union Home Minister Indrajit Gupta continued the UF's campaign against the Commission by saying that it should provide evidence.

There is no doubt the home minister has the right to seek such information, but how dare he casts aspersions on a judicial Commission's integrity? And that, too, merely to ensure the UF's survival. With a little circumspection, such washing of dirty linen in public could have been avoided.

Congress president Sitaram Kesri's initial reaction was even more astonishing. ''I have not read the report. But there is no link between the findings and the support to the UF government.''

The Congress Working Committee, which met in New Delhi on November 9 -- when the Jain Commission findings rocked the country -- showed an astonishing degree of empathy for the UF. The CWC also talked of continuous dialogue to ''avoid friction'' in the future.

Considering the way the CWC ignored banner headlines in newspapers, it is apparent that Rajiv's blood is only a ''saleable commodity'' for the party.

But Kesri had to reverse his stand in less than two days with various sections of the party demanding that support to the UF should be withdrawn.

Former Union minister and senior Congress leader K Karunakaran summed up the mood. ''No Congressman can allow the guilty in the case to go scot-free. There is no question of the Congress supporting any government which harbours such guilty men.''

Karunakaran had lost his CWC seat because of Kesri's designs. Ironically, his bete noire and former Union minister A K Antony was one of the architects of the CWC's soft stand on the Commission report.

Effecting a volte face in less than 48 hours, Kesri said he was ''convinced that the UF was not capable of running the country''. Whatever happened to his earlier conviction that the UF must continue in power just to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party in check!

Caught between the spectre of the BJP staging a comeback and Rajiv Gandhi's blood, the Congress may throw up many more such contradictions.

What the Congress did on November 9 and after Mahatma Gandhi's assassination on January 30, 1948 is no different. It was trying to derive political advantage. While Nehru sought to decimate an alleged suspect, later exonerated, Kesri is defending a person who has been indicted.

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