Prophetic words. Distillation of 50 years of parliamentary experience plus that rare sixth sense. Now you see why, after Dr Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet burnt midnight oil over giving final touches to the ordinance, it dropped the idea like a hot potato the very next day. Caught red-handed, many worthies in the Government are claiming that promulgating an ordinance (first broken by a bombshell-of-a-report by R Venkataraman in this paper) had never crossed their minds, that it’s only a figment of the opposition’s imagination, and that Parliament was adjourned sine die only because it had completed all its listed business.

Another lie. Passage of the Finance Bill is not the only business of the Budget session. Many issues of national importance are waiting to be discussed by parliamentarians; after all, that’s what the people have elected them for.

But a far bigger lie was enacted on Thursday afternoon at 10 Janpath, with all the theatrics of a cunning political plot. In announcing her resignation, Sonia Gandhi sanctimoniously said that she was ‘‘hurt’’ by some people ‘‘creating an atmosphere in the country as if the Government and Parliament were being used only for my benefit’’. Soniaji, every verifiable fact about what your own party and government functionaries were doing from morning till midnight the previous day goes to prove that the Government and Parliament were indeed being used mainly for your benefit.

The ‘‘benefit’’ accruing from the ordinance to other MPs facing disqualification for holding offices of profit was of secondary consideration for your strategists. And don’t tell us that you knew nothing, and had not approved, of their strategy (of getting Parliament closed and preparing an ordinance). Which is why, during your deliberately brief press interaction, you cleverly evaded questions about the ordinance and Parliament’s adjournment, questions that could have put you on the mat.

... contd.