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Why Swamy's presence in Rajya Sabha makes Anupam Kher's role redundant

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Kaveree Bamzai
Kaveree BamzaiApr 30, 2016 | 10:39

Why Swamy's presence in Rajya Sabha makes Anupam Kher's role redundant

So all those troubled by Anupam Kher's exclusion from the Rajya Sabha nominations, have no fear.

The thespian quota is being ably and adquately filled by Subramanian Swamy for the BJP.

As many have noted in his first two days in the House, Swamy has already made waves, tearing into his favourite subject, Sonia Gandhi. With great gusto and brio, he has played his role brilliantly, villain for the Congress party, hero for the BJP, and for the public at large, the comic relief.

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He has achieved two purposes - rattled Mother India into a rare display of bilingual public anger; as well as our nightly, climactic spectacle of anchors screaming at their guests and the audience out there, telling the Nation What They Want It To Know.

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Swamy has made the pursuit of the Gandhi family his lifetime obsession.

I, for one, am delighted. We haven't quite recovered from the run-up to the 2014 general election, where Narendra Modi would entertain us daily with attacks on UPA-2. Then, of course, we went and elected him, which had the twin adverse effects of both silencing him (except when he goes abroad and does rock shows with NRIs) and of denying us our daily fix of entertainment.

So we have to be grateful to Swamy, who has made the pursuit of the Gandhi family his lifetime obsession. Swamy is a charmingly quirky man, which is evidenced from the fact that he has often said how Rajiv Gandhi was one of his closest friends (if this is what he does to his friends, I shudder to think what he will do to his enemies).

No one can deny his amazing vitality and his unfailing vigour in ensuring the Gandhis go to jail - whether in the National Herald case or in the AgustaWestland case, there is no rumour too minor or accusation too major to level on the Gandhis and their acolytes.

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I can assure you what he says off the record is even more colourful - also that it is not off the record for him (there is no one Swamy fears), but for the journalist, who is rarely able to susbstantiate some of his taller claims. But the beauty of Swamy's magnificent obsession is that he has an arsenal of claims - small, medium, large, extra large and well, some plain rated R. And the even greater beauty is that the Congress' first family is happy to provide him with many opportunities for displaying his histrionics.

Swamy has assiduously worked his contacts across the spectrum in politics, the bureaucracy and in mysterious "international" friends, to ensure the downfall of his enemies. So it is not surprising that Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally gave him something to do (as Lyndon Johnson so famously said, "It is better to have him inside the tent pissing out that outside the tent pissing in.").

He is far more dangerous than the other loose cannon, Ram Jethmalani, and certainly more uself too, in his ability to distract the Opposition which was a little too uppity for the prime minister's taste perhaps in the first two years of his term.

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Nothing like a Rajya Sabha nomination to revive a politician's career.

The Mumbai glamour industry was generous in lending Smriti Irani to the Rajya Sabha - and she repaid their faith with a chart-busting performance in the last session, full of chest thumping and fist pumping.

Perhaps after Swamy, now a six-term MP, has completed his six-year term in the Rajya Sabha and underlined the theatre in political theatre, he can be exported to Boillywood. He may well have run through the Gandhi family by then, which would pretty much mean the end of his single-focused political career, right?

Last updated: May 01, 2016 | 12:30
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