Reality Bites: PM must have a new house even as PMO begs for foreign aid

While presidents and prime ministers across the world are generously donating relief material and funds to help India beat the Covid crisis, there is one prime minister who continues to behave like a selfish goblin. At a time when Indians are running out of cremation and burial grounds and are even grateful to settle for a dog crematorium for their beloved family members, he’s not made a single sacrifice yet.

Imagine the blessings he would have received if he had announced that he was giving up his unnecessary 20,000 Crore Central Vista vanity project and diverting those funds towards Covid relief ? Instead, he’s whipping his boys who in turn are whipping labourers to hurry up with the uglification of Delhi. He wants it to be ready by 2022. He’s banking on the fact that idiots who voted for a temple will vote for his new house and office too.

I can’t help wondering if those Indians who voted for a temple over science are delighted to have got exactly what they wanted: Only God to rely on since hospitals are packed, and the government has abdicated its responsibilities? Call me cynical, but I’m pretty sure that the next time they vote, science will lose again. There are more than enough pliant media houses and “influencers” around to fan the flames of stupidity and bigotry.

As I type this, a leading national daily has informed us in awe-struck tones that the selfish goblin has held over 21 high-powered Covid meetings. Hello, twenty-one meetings and yet people are still gasping for oxygen? That, to me, is the height of incompetence, but fat chance our mainstream media will admit it.

Photographs have been shared of the selfish goblin at some of those “high-powered” meetings: he’s always seated in a higher, fancier chair, because he’s a megalomaniac too, and likes to look down on people. Such a pity that he’s only given soft, padded chairs—shouldn’t his staff go the whole hog and give him a padded cell as well? The nation will breathe easier that way.

Although the selfish goblin’s PM Cares fund piggy bank is getting stouter than his Man Friday, he’s been extremely tight-fisted about sharing it with us. Now that the world is watching him, he has reluctantly announced that a few oxygen plants will come up in the distant future, and has ensured that news anchors scream the following words so loudly that world leaders don’t have to tune in to hear them: “They will be paid for by the PM Cares fund”. This, I assume, is to inspire them to cough up more goodies.

Which is why my respect for Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau has grown—he has wisely donated to the Indian Red Cross instead of the PM Cares fund. Thanks to his understanding of how the selfish goblin operates, Indians may finally get some relief.

And now for a shocker. India is not atmanirbhar anymore! Congress leader Manish Tewari pointed it out on Twitter: “In 2004 in wake of Devastating Tsunami Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh refused to accept Foreign Aid. In 2021 after allowing the 2nd Wave to overwhelm us PMO India is compelled to ask for Foreign Aid. Just yesterday we were AtamNirbhar but overnight we are Foreign Aid dependent ??? (sic)"

It’s as plain as day: If the selfish goblin had really wanted India to be self-reliant, wouldn’t he have stopped the wasteful Central Vista project and used the money to Covid-proof India as far as possible? He has created Covid hotspots instead: crowds at cricket matches in Ahmedabad, packed mask-less rallies in West Bengal, the Kumbh Mela in Uttarakhand, etc.

And, he’s still not thinking! If the IPL must go on, why should it happen in Covid hotspots like Delhi? Medical staff, testing equipment, ambulances and things that already are in short supply have been diverted to create that “bio bubble”. It’s evident that Shehzada Jay Shah has got his daddy’s heart. His daddy’s best friend, Tushar Mehta, has also got his daddy’s heart. In response to Delhi government lawyer Rahul Mehra’s complaint that the Centre was not complying with the guidelines for oxygen allocation, Solicitor General Mehta said, “Let’s try and not be a cry baby.”

Please do not follow Tushar Mehta’s advice. We must be cry babies and demand accountability.

(Any resemblance with real people and events is a coincidence)