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India Piqued by Time Report, Denies Vajpayee in Bad Health
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Vajpayee:
is he really in control?
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By
IOL South Asia correspondent
NEW
DELHI, June 17 (IslamOnline) - India has reacted very sharply to Time
magazine’s report in its latest edition that its ageing Prime
Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee is a drunkard, ‘half-dead’ and
ailing.
The
report on Vajpayee was penned by the American writer Alex Perry after
observing the Indian Prime Minister during his recent visit to a
security conference at Almaty in Kazakhastan.
The
report left the Indian establishment fuming, fretting and embarrassed
to no ends. In a virulent reaction to the report, editor of The
Pioneer, charged that the report “mocked at the democratically
elected leader of a country of one billion people.”
In
his report, “Asleep at the Wheel?”, subtitled “As India and
Pakistan put up their nukes, is an ailing and frail Vajpayee the right
man to have his finger at the button?”, Alex Perry questioned
Vajpayee’s ability to be effectively at the helm of the nation’s
governance given his questionable state of health at these critical
times when the nation is on the brink of a war with neighboring
Pakistan.
In
his report, Parry introduced Vajpayee as a person “who drank heavily
in his prime and still enjoys a nightly whiskey or two at 74…The
Indian leader also takes painkillers for his replaced knees and has
trouble with his bladder, liver and his one remaining kidney.”
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Vajpayee
in various moods
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Perry
continues about Vajpayee that “A taste for fried food and fatty
sweets plays havoc with his cholesterol. He takes a three-hour snooze
every afternoon on doctor’s orders and is given to interminable
silences, indecipherable ramblings and, not infrequently, falling
asleep in meetings.”
Taking
the Prime Minister’s overall state of health into account, Perry
adds that “Atal Behari Vajpayee, then, would be an unusual candidate
to control a nuclear arsenal.” To add more to the discomfort of the
establishment, the report claimed that Vajpayee’s stewardship was
looking “less and less comforting.” It went on to add that the
frail bachelor “seems shaky and lost, an ageing sage than an
ordinarily old man.”
The
report quoted a diplomat saying that Vajpayee appeared to be
“half-dead” during his meeting with a western foreign minister.
The report also revealed that there was consensus among observers and
diplomats that the hawkish Home Minister LK Advani was prime minister
in waiting and claimed that the second most important man was national
security advisor Brajesh Mishra.
Earlier,
a Russian television channel reported that during the recent security
conference at Almaty in Kazakhstan, Prime Minister Vajpayee appeared
unwell. The Russian correspondent also claimed that Vajpayee did not
appear to be very attentive during his meeting with the Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
The
Indian establishment has not taken too kindly to the Time magazine’s
exposé on the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has
reacted sharply to the report. In its clarification, the PMO claimed
today that the entire world media had witnessed the Indian Prime
Minister’s participation in the summit. The findings of Alex Perry
are a “blatant lie,” it said.
Besides
the PMO, pro-government media-persons also have taken umbrage on the
“distasteful” writing on Vajpayee. One such media-person is
Chandan Mitra, editor of The Pioneer, a the pro-BJP newspaper. In his
comments on Perry’s write-up, Mitra expressed his outrage at the
“supercilious, patronizing, white-supremacist, flippant and crassly
ill-mannered tone” of the piece. He also charged that Alex Perry’s
report is a compilation of outright untruths, insinuations,
distortions and obnoxious assertions.
“The
Prime Minister is accused of forgetting names, dozing off at meetings
and even looking ‘half-dead!’ Indian TV crew are allegedly
instructed to shoot him only waist up to avoid showing his ungainly,
post-knee surgery gait!” said Mitra. He added that it is a blatant
lie that TV cameras are ordered not to show his shuffling walk.
Referring
to other “insinuations” about the Prime Minister, Mitra said,
arguably Vajpayee is given to long silences while framing answers in
his mind, but those thinking that he has gone off to sleep are sadly
and grossly mistaken. Maybe, he closes his eyes at meetings, giving
the impression he’s catching forty winks. But when his turn comes
for speaking, he rebuts or endorses point after point made by previous
speakers, quoting their words with remarkable exactitude, Mitra said.
But, while writing his rejoinder on behalf of the Prime Minister,
Mitra studiously avoided the reference to Vajpayee’s drinking habit
or what harm this particular habit has brought to him.
These
reactions by loyalists apart, Vajpayee’s health has in fact been a
subject of national concern here for years. Twice in the last three
years, Vajpayee did not appear in sound health especially on the
occasion of Independence celebrations. In 1998 he started up the long
flights of steps as if in a trance, wearing just one slipper (the
other was quickly restored to him).
In
the year 2000 on the same occasion of independence day, Vajpayee fell
in front of a horrified TV audience of millions, as if suffering a
momentary blackout. The International Herald Tribune reported on
September 1, 2000, that Vajpayee “appeared frail and occasionally
breathless” during an interview during a 13-day U.S. visit which
was, however, cut short by two days owing to his ill health.
However,
some analysts believe that Vajpayee has to carry on with the burden,
as the edifice of the BJP government will crumble the moment he stepps
down. There is no one in the party’s ranks who can keep together the
two dozen political parties in the ruling National Democratic Alliance
(NDA).
Home
Minister Advani may be waiting in the wings, but his leadership is
unacceptable to most parties in the NDA.
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