It was with much interest that India watched the political drama that unfolded in Orissa. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik decided to snap ties with his long time ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He and his party then joined hands with the Communists.

“I and my party feel free after snapping ties with the communal BJP,” Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister of Orissa said recently. He was reacting to the remarks by BJP leader Sushma Swaraj who called him a “traitor.”

When did Mr. Patnaik become so secular? The whole world knows him as the man who presided over unprecedented violence against Christians in the impoverished state of Orissa. Along with the “communal” BJP, he hung on to his position as Chief Minister instead of accepting moral responsibility for all the atrocities that was heaped on Christians.

Thousands of Christians were chased out their homes and yet to be returned from the ‘relief camps’. Churches and homes of Christians were torched and vandalised. Christian nuns were raped; priests were tortured and paraded along streets. And all these happened under the watchful eyes of Patnaik’s policemen who turned a deaf year to the pleas of women in distress. Even now, thousands of Christians in Orissa live in camps because they are afraid of returning to their villages. Many have migrated to the safer states in the south. Was not Patnaik guilty of abetting flames of “communalism” in his state? Why was his police mute spectators when terror reigned in Orissa for weeks? And now, he has suddenly become so holy, so innocent. All the blame is now on “communal” BJP! Can we expect a day in the history of India when politicians will confess their mistakes? It is my dream to hear at least one of these politicians say, “Yes, the buck stops here.”

With the fast approaching Lok Sabha elections, Naveen Patnaik has played it safe by dumping the BJP and by aligning with the Communists who are promoting a so-called “Third Front.” How else should Indians interpret this political somersault? That politicians in this country serve their own interests is no secret. The depths to which they stoop to achieve their ends is shocking to say the least. The rag tag coalition called the Third Front is a convenient asylum of such opportunistic “leaders.”

The BJP finds itself in a sticky situation now—not because Patnaik called it communal but because one of its won “inexperienced” workers. Experienced BJP workers know how to conceal the RSS agenda well within well chosen words. But youthful and “inexperienced” Varun Gandhi has once again exposed the fangs of BJP and the Sangh Parivar. Although the party initially has distanced itself from Varun Gandhi’s alleged vitriolic and criminal speech, now it is playing the martyr card though it had backfired. Moreover, it stands accused as an organisation that has given rise to “leaders” such as Varun Gandhi. Many members of the majority community are so insecure that they need help in dealing with it. Varun Gandhi is just a representative sample of the lot. The BJP has more worries in store. The indictment of Maya Kodnani and Jaydeep Patel in connection with the Gujarat riots has opened another Pandora’s box for Advani and his men.

The coming parliamentary elections will hopefully sift and expose a large number of self-serving candidates and parties who exploit the democratic processes in this country to undermine its very secular and federal constitution. We the people of this country should use our franchise in such a way that those who do not believe in the Indian Constitution will not make it to high offices to subvert India.