It's advantage Congress as Bachchan exits Amar show

NEW DELHI: Amar Singh and the Congress can’t seem to have enough of each other. A day after SP leader Amar Singh hit back at the Congress for calling him an ‘item boy’ by equating the party to pop singer Mika, the Congress on Friday responded by lashing out at the UP leader and his party for adopting a ‘Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa’ (dilly-dallying) approach to the Bachchans’ run-in with the IT department.

The Congress also claimed that there was an ulterior motive to the timing of Mr Singh’s statements to the press about the department’s notice to his wife.

The party said it was the ‘fear of certain defeat’ that was motivating the UP politician’s ‘histrionics and drama’. Though not as colourful as Mr Singh, the Congress sought to put Mr Singh in the dock quoting Shakespeare and filmy titles, interspersed with textbook Hindi phrases almost all at one go.

The party demanded to know what ‘pain was afflicting the SP’, when Amitabh Bachchan himself had claimed that he was facing no ‘harassment’ at the hands of the IT department.

“The statements of the SP and Amar Singh point to the existentialist dilemma in the party — to be or not to be. There has to be resolution to this dilemma of ‘Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa’. Mr Bachchan has clarified that the IT department is doing its work,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said.

Mr Singhvi also added that Mr Singh’s statements to the press on Thursday about the IT department’s notice to his wife Pankaja, challenging the department and the Congress to order a raid on his properties, hid a ‘mystery’ behind them.

“The notice sent to Mrs Amar Singh is many months old. What is the ‘raaz’...mystery behind it (the timing of his press statements). There is utter misgivings in the ranks of the SP about its certain defeat in the upcoming assembly elections.

The only explanation is that they have begun indulging in histrionics and drama....Why are old issues being raked up? The people know all,” Mr Singhvi said.

Raising six points which pointed to the contradictions in the SP on the Bachchan issue, he said Mr Bachchan had admitted that he was sent no IT notice when he was hospitalised in the intensive care unit a few months back nor had he received a notice from the department on the purchase of a pair of sunglasses worth Rs 2 lakh allegedly.

He also said that Mr Bachchan himself (the assessee in this case) has not sought it fit to adopt a legal recourse to address his ‘grievance’.

However the SP not only went to the press over the issue “but obstruct(ed) government functioning and use(d) diversionary, strong arm tactics”. He pointed out that Mulayam Singh Yadav had said that the party was not acting on behalf of Mr Bachchan.

His last point was that the notice sent to Mr Singh’s wife was many months old. Talking to the press on Thursday, Mr Singh had dared the IT department and the Congress to order raids on his properties claiming that it would ‘benefit’ him politically.

He said that when Mayawati had ordered raids against SP leaders when she was in power, it had proved beneficial to them as ‘the entire world had got to know the truth’.