A rare faceoff

Although Julian Assange is famed for his timely and startling revelations of secretive cables exposing dishonest and unlawful acts perpetrated by nations across the globe...this mysterious stern looking man strangely also has a funny streak to him. In the midst of business as usual, Assange’s recently released US diplomatic cables on the Wikileaks website, makes one such revelation that the Chief Minister (CM) of Uttar Pradesh State in India, Mayawati, had sent an empty jet to Mumbai to pick her favorite pair of shoes.

Undoubtedly there is no strong evidence to anything that Julian Assange reveals. On the face of it, the world denies to believe them calling it fake and all cooked up stories. But deep down, we still tend to pay heed to these cables. The Mayawati cables published recently put the entire nation in shame except for Mayawati herself who retorted back abusing Assange to the hilt. Nevertheless, Mayawati’s political rivals obviously exploited this situation to gain political mileage.

How can the CM of a State splurge taxpayer’s hard earned money for her personal use…that too for a mere pair of shoes. Even if those shoes were embellished with gold and diamonds and worth more than the price of the jet plane, isn’t that a real shameful thing to do.

A person very well known for her antics, Mayawati has committed many a similar blunders in her career span as CM. From spending crores of Indian rupees for erecting statutes of herself…to being felicitated with cash garland on her birthday year after year, Mayawati has done it all.

On release of these cables by Wikileaks, acerbic Mayawati hit back at Assange calling him a lunatic in need of immediate psychiatric intervention at an asylum. In a fit of fury, Mayawati even bit back saying that in case of occupancy shortage abroad, Assange could seek admission at the Agra asylum in India for treatment. The unruffled Assange willingly accepted Mayawati’s proposal and even passionately spoke about his love for India. So cool was Assange that he offered to gift Mayawati a range of specialized British crafted shoes and even promised to deliver it to India, provided Mayawati sent across her jet plane to England to collect it.

So far, Mayawati has been targeted by her political rivals who criticized her for her penchant for corruption. But one would never have imagined a verbal spat between two unlike personalities. It is a rare faceoff between a power-hungry acerbic political personality like Mayawati versus a daredevil whistleblower, Julian Assange.

This cable on Mayawati released by Wikileaks is nothing new. There’s nothing really startling about it. Mayawati is just a symptom. On the behest of power, Mayawati fearlessly does everything in public purview and hence is singled out. Unlike most of our top politicians and public servants who covertly rob the nation of its wealth.

However, looks like the judgment hour is here. With credit to the Anna Hazare's ‘India against corruption’ movement and the Supreme Court intervention, many of these greedy netas and babus are booked behind bars today. Critics debate saying that it is impossible to wipe out corruption with one Lokpal bill. True that! but we need to begin somewhere right? And the good thing is that we have booted up the anti-corruption movement already. If this momentum continues and the government makes this its key point in the national agenda, we surely will reach our goal of a corruption free India.

~*~Bungalaw, gaadi, bank balance, zameen, sona kuch nahi sab moh Maya hai ~*~

On a lighter note
Sadly Mayawati didn’t respond to Assange’s kind hearted proposal. Only wish Assange would send those classy England crafted shoes to me instead. The only hitch is that like Mayawati I don’t own a jet plane.

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