Kejriwal-Khurshid war evenly poised

The opposition parties, which stood with India Against Corruption (IAC) in the latter’s campaign against Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra, seems to have stayed away from Arvind Kejriwal’s war against Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid.

Though every party has its own reason to shun Kejriwal, they seem to have come to this decision as a political class.  

The BJP knows the advantage in a campaign against UPA minister from Hindi heartland, but the party has become wary of Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan led IAC ever since its chief Nitin Gadkari was targeted by an anti-graft activist. But the party has retained its veneer and of late it even reacted by demanding a fair probe into the allegations against Khurshid.  “They (Khurshid and wife) should answer the questions they are being asked. Adapting a negative attitude and launching an attack against the television channel which did the sting operation is bad. We condemn the government's attitude,” BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain told reporters on Monday.

However, BJP’s ally JDU is not so enthusiastic to support IAC campaign against both Vadra and Khurshid. Sources said this is because JDU’s decision not to go bitter against the Congress. JDU chief Sharad Yadav even chose to condemn the anti-graft crusaders.

“Some people, in the name of civil society, have diverted from the (real) issues.  They have started focussing on personal matters instead of paying attention to issues like price rise, unemployment, scams, FDI, farmers’ suicide etc,” he said on Monday.  Yadav said that the amount involved in Vadra issue (Rs 500 crore) and Khurshid issue (Rs 100 crore) are not big amounts.

The Left parties did not give much importance to the charges against Khurshid.  The Samajwadi Party can not be expected to support IAC’s movement, as the anti-graft outfit has been targeting them since its inception. Presently, it has alleged Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is trying to rescue Khurshid.