TIMES NEWS NETWORK
New Delhi: The usually voluble lot are silent. And those who dabbled in smartness have either fallen off the power perch or have stumbled, apologised and are now quiet. 26/11 is proving to be the modulator of political motormouths who, contrary to their trait, are weighing silence in gold. Ubiquitous dramatis personae Raj Thackeray, Amar Singh, Mayawati, Rajnath Singh and Narendra Modi, who dominated headlines and TV screens till Mumbai was raided by Pak-sponsored fidayeen, have simply melted away from public view. The vanishing act is a conscious decision to stay out of the firing line owing to public anger against politicians, especially those with aggressive sectarian agenda. A past master of glib quotes said, “I have simply decided to keep quiet. Why risk anger of agitated masses.” The view is held across party lines. Managing public profile against a groundswell of antipolitician mood is proving a tough task. Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh may have escaped the sack had he not taken movie man Ram Gopal Verma to the Taj in what is being dubbed “terror tourism”. His deputy R R Patil has fallen for trying to defend his role as home minister by diminishing the magnitude of Mumbai terror. Narendra Modi got swayed by his ‘iron man’ hype to forget that politicians, post-Mumbai, were a strict no-no. Kerala CM V S Achuthanandan tripped on the same trick. Though Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi tried to brazen it out by dumbing down the public fury as “powder & lipstick” campaign, BJP quickly disowned him.Virtues of silence are being discovered across the political spectrum. “I saw the fate of Modi and VS. What did Vilasrao do wrong? It is just the mood around,” said a senior politician, advocating low profile for his creed. If 26/11 is the defining moment in their behavioural pattern, the evidence is incontrovertible. Raj Thackeray virtually monopolised the media space since his henchmen kicked off a campaign against North Indians in October. The focus was firmly on him when he visited his estranged ailing uncle Bal Thackeray on November 23. Three days later, when commandos from Bangalore and Dehradun died for Mumbaikars, he vanished with his campaign. Observers say with their existence threatened, the middleclasses are seeing caste and religion agendas as villains. In fact, the fear of attracting popular anger has squeezed out otherwise acceptable bombastic statements on defeating terror. SP brass, which seized on post-Batla House anger among Muslims to run a shrill campaign against Congress, has forgotten it, as it appears, for good.
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