From calling Rajnath Singh ‘Tarzan’ to comparing the BJP leadership to Humpty Dumpty, senior BJP leader Arun Shourie minces no words expressing his disillusionment with the party or urging the RSS to step in. In an interview with The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24X7’s Walk the Talk, he regrets the Jaswant Singh episode and dares the party to act against him

Shekhar Gupta: My guest is one of my most illustrious predecessors at The Indian Express, one of our leading public intellectuals of all times... at a very interesting time, juncture for yourself and your party. Arun Shourie, welcome to Walk the Talk.

Arun Shourie: It is a pleasure.

Shekhar Gupta: The Chinese say ‘May you live in interesting times’. Are these interesting times for you and the party?

Arun Shourie: Actually, I feel quite distant from the party. I must confess that like all other parties it’s now, a party of three, four persons for the projection of three, four persons. There is a line of Firaq (Gorakhpuri), ‘Ab woh yaad bhi kam aate hain, ab dard bhi kam hota hai’.

Shekhar Gupta: The line you like to use all the time, ‘Raat gaee, baat gaee’?

Arun Shourie: Haan, woh kal ke baad.

Shekhar Gupta: Why the disillusionment?

Arun Shourie: From Atalji’s (Bihari Vajpayee’s) departure, his withdrawal and what you see now... In every sphere of life, there is a great pygmyisation, not just diminution, of leadership... That makes a great difference. And then artificial controversies — Hindutva and so on. If you ask what Hindutva is, the Supreme Court has already said it is a way of life. Is Islam not a way of life? Is Christianity not a way of life? Is the addiction of a drug addict not a way of life? So, what is this? People who can’t spell the word, probably in going from one dinner party to the other, keep saying, ‘I am committed to Hindutva’. So these artificial controversies are coming up and are contrived, only to give a signal somewhere — ‘See this man stands by our ideology’, or it is to put somebody else in the wrong and on the defensive.

... contd.