Ex VPS must also conform to a model code of conduct

Vajpayee made it very clear that he would not criticise the Congress government when on foreign soil. 'We may have our differences at home but once we leave the shores of India, we are all Indians', was his surmise.

- VIVEK GUMASTE

People would expect anyone who has held an exalted position in the country to conform to a model code of conduct; a conduct that upholds the dignity and honour of the country as well as the decorum of the position that they once occupied. Has Vice President Hamid Ansari lived up to those high standards or is the ire and concern of the BJP to a degree justified.?

There has been a long history of distrust between the BJP and ex Vice-President Hamid Ansari. When he was the Vice-President and thus the Ex-Officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, the BJP saw him to be deliberately obstructive to their legislative goals.

And the first salvo in the current slanging match was fired by the ex-Vice President himself.

In January this year, while speaking in a virtual panel discussion organised by the Indian American Muslim Council (an organization that has consistently strived to get India blacklisted by the USCIRF), he made common cause with anti-India US lawmakers like Ed Markey and Jim McGovern, Andy Levin and Jamie Raskin to denigrate India by calling into question its commitment to democracy, secularism and even the rule of law.

Hamid Ansari pointedly decried the current government: The former Vice President said that in recent years, the country has "experienced the emergence of trends and practises that dispute the well-established principle of civic nationalism...and interposes a new and imaginary practice of cultural nationalism. It seeks to present an electoral majority in the guise of a religious majority and monopolized political power. It wants to distinguish citizens on the basis of their faith, give vent to intolerance, insinuate otherness, and promote disquiet and insecurity..."