Congress game backfires. No doubt, Jairam Ramesh was the first Congressman to plea that Jagdeep Dhankhar's resignation need not be accepted so quickly.
The Opposition parties in the late eighties found a character called V P Singh to fight Rajiv Gandhi.
That was an immensely successful experiment.
The Congress had tried with Sayapal Malik in the past. Their similar attempt was also around a Jat leader and India's Vice President named Jagdeep Dhankhar.
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BJP national president and Leader of the Upper House of Indian Parliament J P Nadda urged the Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar to wait, citing that there was an ongoing effort to build a consensus for a joint impeachment motion.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju and Union Law Minister Arjun Meghwal also tried their part.
But Dhankhar took a defiant stand.
On July 21, Monday morning, it became clear that the Vice President would rather trust a senior Congress leader and would formally accept the signatures collected by the Opposition leaders and announce the motion in the House.
Jagdeep Dhankhar started believing that he has a stature of his own and as a Jat leader he can emerge as a 'face' against the present BJP leadership. The Congress and some other smaller opposition parties had started believing that they should build an aura around Dhankhar's image as was the case with V P Singh when Rajiv Gandhi was in power.
Dhankhar met a few Opposition leaders including a key player from Congress on Sunday and Monday where a proposal to bring about an impeachment motion against Justice Yashwant Varma was discussed.
In all likelihood, the matters related to another judge Justice Shekhar Yadav also figured. The Opposition parties wanted to club both the impeachment processes together.
One was corruption - Justice Varma's case and the other -- certain controversial remarks on Hindutva themes of Justice Yadav.
Kiren Rijiju
However, the Vice President did not share with the government's floor managers on what the Opposition said to him.
A few days before the Monsoon Session of the Parliament, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju had already informed the Vice President of the Centre's intention of going ahead with a proposal in the Lok Sabha to move an impeachment motion against Justice Varma. Dhankhar was also told that a similar proposal would be introduced in the Rajya Sabha as well.
As the Session began and things became clear that Dhankhar was almost prepared for a head on collision with the government; first, JP Nadda and Kiren Rijiju met with the Vice President.
The second time, Rijiju and Arjun Meghwal met him.
The third time, Meghwal, who also is from Rajasthan as Mr Dhankhar himself, called on him and conveyed that the government should be taken into confidence and that signatures from ruling party MPs were also important.
But the Vice President did not budge and gave no assurance to the government. He gave a clear indication that he would read out the list of Opposition MPs in the House.
Around 4 pm on Monday, his secretariat released to the media Vice President's tour programme for Rajasthan. The government was further alerted as Dhankhar's plans coincided with on-going monsoon session of Parliament.
The assumption was that probably he could make some announcement (anti-government) - at a time when PM Narendra Modi would have left for the United Kingdom to oversee signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
Dhankhar had also assured the Opposition, in his own capacity, that he would take up Justice Shekhar Yadav's impeachment case separately. Justice Yadav's case was not of corruption. It pertained to his remarks on Sanatan Dharm and Hindutva issues while Justice Varma's impeachment matter related to corruption.
The government was against the idea of any impeachment motion against Justice Yadav and on Justice Varma, it wanted to show a consensus built up against corruption.
It became clear that Dhankhar wanted to take on the Modi regime.
A controversial speech by sitting Allahabad high court judge Justice Shekhar Yadav sparked a political row and the Opposition parties also had urged Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna to take cognizance of the issue.
According to reports in the media, delivering a lecture on the constitutional necessity of Uniform Civil Code (UCC) at an event organised by the legal cell of the VHP, Justice Yadav allegedly said, “I have no hesitation in saying that this is Hindustan, this country would function as per the wishes of the bahusankhyak [majority] living in Hindustan.
This is the Law. You can’t say that you are saying this being a High Court Judge. The law, in fact, works according to the majority. Look at it in the context of family or society...
...Only what benefits the welfare and happiness of the majority will be accepted".
Jagdeep Dhankhar thought he would make a good combo of fighting 'Hindutva' and corruption and then emerge a chief face of the opposition to take on the BJP.
In the name of personal ambition, he harboured some illusion. Sources also claim that Dhankhar used to request that his photograph be displayed alongside those of the Prime Minister and the President in ministers’ offices.
He also allegedly pressured multiple times for all the vehicles in his fleet to be upgraded to Mercedes-Benz cars. He thought these were big; ultimately tif true hey make him appear so small today.
ends
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