‘Real Time Cop’ brings Cong, BJP together

In a rare event on Monday, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party came together at the launch of former joint police commissioner YC Pawar’s book, `Real Time Cop’ to make some even more rare, candid and honest observations about the state of the nation in the absence of honest discourse.

In a rare event on Monday, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party came together at the launch of former joint police commissioner YC Pawar’s book, `Real Time Cop’ to make some even more rare, candid and honest observations about the state of the nation in the absence of honest discourse.

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Union power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and BJP national president Nitin Gadkari, visibly impressed by Pawar’s unflinching honesty took advantage of the occasion to make some honest observations of their own.

Shinde and Gadkari had both tried very hard to draw Pawar into their respective parties – Gadkari succeeded while Shinde did not. Pawar is vice president of the state BJP today but, according to Gadkari, he continues to be steadfastly uncompromising about his principles and refuses to bend to anybody’s will, insisting upon following only the dictates of his own conscience.

“Unfortunately, politics is a discipline of compulsions, compromises and adjustments every and does not really entertain unbending individuals,” Gadkari said. “Even more unfortunate is the fact that while parties are in the opposition we always only point out the problems. Sadly, we do not either look for or offer any solutions for those problems.”

Shinde did some plain speaking of his own. Telling Pawar that politics was a “different kind of discipline” where the discipline came by listening to and obeying the party high command, he said, “Unfortunately in our country today we are giving rise to a culture where there is no discipline – groups of people make all kinds of accusations against leaders and others without any substance and are leading the country to chaos.”

“We were sailing along comfortably at a nine per cent growth rate. Now we are down to six per cent. Unfortunately, it is we the people who have done this to ourselves and cannot blame extraneous factors.