Mumbai, June 12 (IANS) Amid several MPs and legislators deserting the Trinamool Congress (TMC) after the party’s rout in the recently held state Assembly polls, the Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray on Friday claimed that politics in the country has degenerated into a mere trade of self-interest.

It said that the voters cast their ballots based on a specific party symbol and ideology, expecting representation, only for self-serving political opportunists “to immediately jump from one plate to another for personal gain”. Much like the nursery rhyme ‘Hop along, little pumpkin’, these opportunistic politicians and their leaders hop all the way to Delhi.

The Thackeray camp, in an editorial in the party’s mouthpiece, ‘Saamana’, argued that just as various varieties of grapes and mangoes have been developed, new breeds of these volatile politicians have now emerged — and leading the pack is the ‘Saayoni Ghosh’ variety, a seed that will undoubtedly become famous as ‘Saayoni Seeds’.

The editorial stated that many are left wondering how to deal with characters like Saayoni Ghosh. “During the West Bengal Assembly election campaign, Ghosh made a name for herself with her sharp, fiery speeches. She crafted an image as a “mini-Mamata”, ripping into the BJP at every rally and proclaiming Mamata Banerjee as her mother figure. Consequently, when cracks began to appear in the Trinamool Congress parliamentary ranks, few expected her name to be on that list,” it added.

The editorial further stated, with fortunes shifting at Mamata’s camp, Saayoni Ghosh has abandoned her “mother figure” and the Trinamool Congress “to park her horse firmly inside the BJP stable. While the defecting TMC MPs have formed an independent group for now, they are bound to merge with the BJP sooner rather than later”.

According to the editorial, the irony is stark. “When Raghav Chadha, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha MP, abandoned his party to join the BJP, Ghosh had expressed immense fury over his betrayal. She lamented the complete loss of loyalty and morality in modern politics. When asked back then if she too would eventually defect to the BJP, an enraged Ghosh had snapped: ‘I am Ghosh, not Chadha, who would turn into a pair of shorts’. Today, however, she has metaphorically become that very entity, casting off her cloak of honesty to join the ranks of those dancing to the ruling party’s tunes,” it said.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena observed that unbridled ambition and betrayal turn politicians into “an eggplant on a plate – a turncoat.”

“This is no longer just an idiom; it has become the bitter reality of contemporary Indian politics. A turncoat politician, like an eggplant, can be mixed into any dish on the stove – from bharit (mashed eggplant) to bhajiyas (fritters); it possesses no distinct flavour of its own,” it commented.

The editorial said that Maharashtra’s political landscape has recently witnessed a bumper crop of such turncoat politicians, and their cultivation is being thoroughly nurtured. “The case of Saayoni Ghosh serves as an ideal case study. These ‘plate-hopping’ politicians change colours faster than chameleons – a phenomenon so rampant it could warrant a PhD research study. The style of opportunistic politics has flourished so heavily that everyone seems to want to become a turncoat. This marks a severe degradation of the country’s politics and ideology,” it noted.

“Ultimately, these politicians have become cheap and universally available commodities. Lacking an inherent spine or flavour, they soften and wilt the moment they are exposed to political pressure. They can no longer be trusted,” said the editorial.

–IANS

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