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| No low too low for Subramanian Swamy, says Sadhanand Dhume in The Times of India article |
Sadhanand Dhume, a Washington-based journalist, has written an opinion piece on The Times of India edit page launching a serious offensive on BJP leader Subramanian Swamy.
Sadhanand Dhume, a former staffer of Far Eastern Economic Review and The Wall Street Journal, is seen as a BJP sympathiser, who has excellent contacts in the party.
He says Subramanian Swamy's paranoia comes in the way of BJP replacing Congress as natural party of governance.
The immediate trigger is Subramanian Swamy's vitriolic campaign against RBI governor Raghuram Rajan. Subramanian Swamy has called Rajan an “anti-national“, “mentally not fully Indian“, among other things.
Sadhanand Dhume says Subramanian Swamy's attacks, "...laced with innuendo, personal smears and wild conspiracy theories...embody what you might call the paranoid style in Indian politics."
He also lists a few other conspiracy theories Swamy has lent his name to - accusing Sonia Gandhi of conspiring with LTTE to murder Rajiv Gandhi. blaming mysterious Russian poison for Sunanda Pushkar death, Congress' election fraud by rigging electronic voting machines...
"These views stand out not merely for being fantastical, but also for their utter tastelessness. Evidently no low is too low for Swamy , no theory too farfetched..." says Sadhanand Dhume.
The article also recaps Subramanian Swamy's politically promiscuous career; In the 1990s, Subramanian Swamy had called BJP “a party of semiliterates“ and accused the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh of “creeping fascism“.
Subramanian Swamy was languishing in Janata Party, ' effectively a one man band with an email address and a personal assistant.' Till BJP resurrected his career in 2013, Subramanian Swamy had been banished to a political netherworld of loony YouTube videos and Non-Resident Indian conventions. says Sadhanand Dhume.
The edit page article, while entertaining to read, reveals a growing line of divide within BJP and allied Hindutva forces.
As Subramanian Swamy stepped up his attack on Rajan, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley emphatically made it clear that a good part of establishment was behind he beleaguered RBI governor.
But there is also a strong opinion that within the Hindutva brigade there are forces - with fingers pointing to RSS - which are using Subramanian Swamy as a hired gun to oust Rajan.
His policy advocacy and outspoken stance on intolerance and targeting of minorities have made both economic and social conservatives of Hindutva groups uncomfortable.
There is a method to Subramanian Swamy's mad campaign against Rajan. He is consolidating and building a constituency among those dismissed as fringe by mainstream BJP. The fringe elements are large enough to make him a potent force.
It is said that Subramanian Swamy became a Rajya Sabha member against the wishes of Modi-Jaitley combine.
Sadhanand Dhume says there are many in BJP opposed to Subramanian Swamy, but they keep quiet out of fear.
"With some 2.7 million followers on Twitter, Swamy has the power to drag just about anyone into the social media gutter with him,"says Sadhanand Dhume.