Lalit Modi row: Why Arvind Kejriwal is right about politicians
Camera crews in the former Yugoslavia are suddenly much sought after. No, they haven't found treasure a 100 years after an assassination in the region led Europe's great powers into the World War I. No, this has to do with a talkative man who hatched instant cricket in India and knows how to have a good time and then talk about it at hyper speed with all the facts while tweeting and instagramming his pictures with the blonde and the beautiful.
Lalit Modi has hogged the headlines and the news. In his wake, a loquacious external affairs minister, who spent more time within the country than outside the borders, has suddenly developed an affinity for silence after it came to light that she had in a "humanitarian" gesture helped Lalit Modi gain UK travel documents after his passport was revoked. The next day, it was about how he invested in an operation run by the son of the Rajasthan chief minister. Lalit Modi waxed on and on about his proximity to both families of Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje. And he was taken aback when the latter kept a marked distance after the controversy broke. Nobody likes a controversy, least of all politicians who don't want it to disturb the peace while the yoga weekend looms. Then the names started cropping up: a who's who from the centre and the right, only the left and the socialist clan were missing. All the names cleared their throats in reaction.
The united clearing of phlegm reminds one of something the able chief minister of Delhi said ages ago, "Sab mile hue hain". The apex line from the man who claims to have no such connections and wants to snipe at anyone who has even a thread of it. That's the one thing Lalit Modi enjoys even when in exile. His friends will not vouch for him until the controversy dies down. They will all let it pass. PM Narendra Modi has also been unusually quiet. Or he may be waiting to speak on this after all the deep breathing and yoga is done and over with on June 21? Will this Balkan drama leave the BJP Balkanised?