In the era of "Modism", its not advisable to sing songs for Nehru-Gandhi clans but I am tempted to remember late Rajiv Gandhi for his amiable gracious and sweet-tempered nature..I believe, it was easy to get along with him. Today is Rajiv Gandhi birthday and I wish to share my personal face-to-face encounter ( not meeting) with him when he was Prime Minister of India.
In eighties. being an over enthusiastic young entrepreneur, I dared to lay my hands on a project for bringing out a daily from Parwanoo. The Parwaoo was selected the publication center as it was close to Chandigarh and it was felt that a daily newspaper was somewhat viable only if it covered Haryana, Pubjab and UT Chandigarh to sustain. Still feel. a Himachal daily needs ad support from neighboring states to sustain I was able to mobilize some resourceful people to support me financially in this project.
Everything went fine ( backed by govt of the day) until IDBI, the then apex body for re-financing state financial institutions, came into picture. The project was turned down on the plea, it wasn't viable. Tried to convince the IDBI authorities over the viability of the project. Anyway, it was during this "running" that I sought the help of Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister. It was a sheer chance and I grabbed it. Rajiv Gandhi had come to the state to have an aerial look at the devastation wrecked by the heavy rains. Una district was then almost marooned.
After surveying the flooded areas, Rajiv Gandhi addressed a press conference at Shimla. A he was about to leave the press conference , I went to him and sought his help. He walked very fast and sensing that he was about to reach his cavalcade, he stopped and took my hands into his and consoled," don't worry, your work will be done". Putting the letter, I handed over to him into his jacket pocket, he asked me to contact his special secretary in PMO (Parthasarathi) and desired if I had any problem should contact him directly. I spoke to him twice through PMO exchange. and he was nice to share my problem. Its a different matter that project never saw the light of the day. That was the Rajiv Gandhi, a young energetic and approachable. I still believe, he would have been a better PM than the some of his successors.
Congress suffer from many ills and so are other political outfits. None is above board. Its sheer absurdity to blame Congress for patronizing hegemonic politics. All are chips of he same blocks. The problem with Congress is that most of its party leaders are ideologically totally " blind" and rootless. They want to run the party from the air-conditioned rooms whereas saffron party and its mother outfit RSS work at the grass root level. Until, the Congress leaders toil hard at ground level, party can never match BJP organisational strength. I feel that Grand Old Party needs a mother outfit like RSS to sustain itself.
(Chander Sharma)