Narendra Modi’s non-secret vs Rahul Gandhi’s mysteries
By attacking the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate over his non-secret marital status at apublic meeting in Doda, J&K, on Friday, the Congress vice president made a fatal mistake because, far from putting Narendra Modi in the dock, Rahul Gandhi has exposed himself to public accountability regarding shadowy areas of his own life.
Narendra Modi’s marriage, like his humble origins helping his father sell tea at a smallrailway station and education in a Government school, was known to all who knew the family at the time. The arranged marriage as a teenager to a girl of similar age was also known to all who knew both families socially. Later, when he joined the RSS, it was not secret from his colleagues and the news was swirled around in media circles for some years on account of intra-parivar rivalries.
It seems obvious that his reluctance to embrace the grihastha ashram (married life) surfaced only when he found himself on the threshold of that reality, and is not too surprising in the context of India’s civilisational heritage where to this day young men and women renounce the material world for the solitude of a Himalayan cave or life in an ashram.
He retreated as gracefully as possible in a difficult situation in any family in any era, after gently explaining himself to the only other person who mattered in the equation. As luck would have it, she was a person of immense character, and gave him the moral release that ascetics are bound to seek from their parents or spouses when forsaking thehomestead. This is a deep karmic calling that cannot be comprehended by those addicted to sensual pleasures.
Narendra Modi went to the Himalayas until, possibly nudged by an unknown preceptor who may have told him that he still had duties to perform before cutting his bonds with the material world, he returned. As he had already taken leave of his spouse, he did not contact her, but resumed his studies and joined the RSS to do social work. The rest is history.
What is notable is that from the time that Narendra Modi became Chief Minister of Gujarat in October 2001, neither his wife nor any member of her family ever tried to bother him in any way. They have conducted themselves with the grace that is the Hindu norm, something the Congress and its friendly media hounds would do well to respect. Neither side sought annulment or divorce because neither was looking for another relationship.
The attempt to project a conscious disengagement from marital life as the abandonment of an honest wife is an insult to India’s ascetic tradition in which many persons opt to lead celibate lives even while living in society. To hound a dignified lady and her family because they are not protected by a layer of security is repulsive, to say the least. It is time the media backed off.
Rahul Gandhi touched a new low in public life when he attacked Narendra Modi for “suppressing” his marital status in affidavits submitted to the Election Commission in the past, when the Gujarat Chief Minister was under no legal obligation to do so. The Congress vice president should have taken his cue from senior party leader Shankarsinh Vaghela who denounced the proclivity to interfere in the personal lives of others and emphasised that as an old colleague of Narendra Modi, he had personal knowledge that the latter’s personal life was clean as a whistle.
For Rahul Gandhi to equate celibacy with an inability to give “dignity and empowerment to women”, insinuate that more secrets could tumble out of (Modi’s) cupboard, and rake up the scurrilous allegations made by suspended IAS officer Pradeep N Sharma against the Chief Minister (for which he was twice reprimanded by the Supreme Court) has taken the public discourse in the country to a new low.
If the Congress vice president wished to publicly discuss the alleged phone tapping and stalking of a young woman in Gujarat, and insinuate that the Chief Minister was personally involved in an unsavoury activity, he was honour-bound to take note of the Gujarat Government’s affidavit before the Supreme Court, which furnished evidences about the salacious and dubious activities of the impugned officer.
However, having plastered as much muck as possible on the BJP’s numero uno, Rahul Gandhi owes an explanation as to why the ‘big announcement’ that the nation was expecting from the winter of 2003, when he took a young woman to Kerala and Lakshadweep for a holiday with his family, never materialised. This was highly unorthodox to say the least.
Rahul Gandhi’s lengthy relationship with Veronique, a girl he met in London in 1998, has given rise to intense speculation about his marital status, given that the lady was a regular visitor to India for many years, and was also alleged to be the reason behind the Gandhi scion’s frequent trips to London. They have often been spotted, even photographed, watching cricket matches abroad. She holidayed with him in the Andamans in the winter of 1999.
Then, during the 2004 election campaign, Rahul Gandhi told journalists, “My girlfriend’s name is Veronique, not Juanita… she is Spanish and not Venezuelan or Colombian. She is an architect, not a waitress, though I wouldn’t have had a problem with that. She is also my best friend.” Soon after the elections, he told journalists that the family was of Spanish origin and had been living in Venezuela for a long time, which suggests that they may have Venezuelan citizenship, though he did not elaborate. Amazingly, not much has been heard of Veronique since then, though for a while she was spotted in India occasionally.
Given the Congress vice president’s long relationship with an unmarried South American girl, questions are surely in order. Since 2012, Rahul Gandhi has been seen in the company of Noella, an Afghan princess and jewellery designer, whose mother is also an Italian. She is also the granddaughter of former Afghanistan king, late Mohammad Zahir Shah. BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has publicly stated that he had seen the couple together in France over a year ago.
The bottom line is that Narendra Modi is a celibate with a celibate wife and a mutual understanding to live separate lives. Rahul Gandhi is a bachelor who goes on holiday in India and aboard with women he does not marry. As the preeminent leader of the Congress and its de facto prime ministerial candidate, he needs to come clean about his relationships.http://www.niticentral.com/