Mr Vohra and the kings men

Today I am going to write about how the political commentators with hidden loyalties to a party or person are subverting the impartiality of the commentaries published in our newspapers. A case in the point is Mr. Pankaj Vohra, writing a piece called “commission Vs commissioner” in his weekly column “between us” published on 13th august 2007 in “The Hindustan times”. Now Mr. Vohra tries very hard to present a balanced point of view but is clever with manipulation of facts, twisting of statements and generous doses of hearsay to further the agenda of the congress party.
In the piece I mentioned above. Mr Vohra refers to the current controversy regarding Mr. N. Gopalaswamy’s assertion that he has the power to remove an election commissioner and does not need a presidential reference.
In the very first paragraph he asserts that Mr N. Gopalaswamy has taken a 180 degree turn, however a correct assertion would have been that the office of CEC has taken a 180 degree turn. As Mr gopalaswamy has differed from his predecessor Mr Tandon and it was the first time he had put forward his point of view that too when he was asked to do so by the SC.
Then he claims that Mr. Tandon’s view that he has no power in this regard vested under article 324(5) of constitution was taken “apparently after he sought best legal advice”. Mr. Vohra cleverly tries to portray Mr. gopalaswamy as a whimsical and autocratic person. How can mr Vohra assume that mr. Gopalaswamy did not take the best legal advice? We all know even the best legal minds have radically different opinions about the same point.
Then at one place Mr. Vohra says that any body else in seshan’s place would have resigned after severe strictures passed against him by supreme court. That same can be said about Mr. Navin chawla, he accepted money from a congress Mp for his wife’s NGO is a public fact, and if he had even some shred of morality he should have resigned.
Another clever tool that Mr. Vohra employs is hearsay. He says “ gopalaswamy’s detractors claim that he was acting in this manner because of pressure from the BJP, in whose government he was the home secretary under L.K.advani. There are also allegations that gopalaswamy’s proximity to Advani goes back to when the latter was I & B minister in JP government.”
Now this is being too clever by the half as, we had not heard of any newspaper or column before Mr. Vohra put forward the detractor’s theory. Let us see what could be the motivation for Mr. Gopalaswamy, he is already the CEC. He can not go beyond that and BJP is in power. Either the BJP is blackmailing him or what Mr. Vohra says is hogwash.
Finally Mr. Vohra lets out a trial balloon perhaps on the bidding of the people in power he is trying to please. He says that the current crisis could lead to impeachment by parliament against CEC. Now I wonder who would have the power to run impeachment proceedings against Mr. Gopalaswamy, arguably one of the best CEC we had. Remember he gave us the lections in UP which were a masterpiece. We will see Mr Vohra. Between us.