Jairam Ramesh Didn’t Fuss Over Tarun Gogoi’s Padma Bhushan, So Why Now Over Azad?

It seemed odd when Congress leader Jairam Ramesh posted a cryptic tweet “Right thing to do. He wants to be Azad, not (a) Gulam”, while also lauding former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya who refused to accept the Padma Bhushan award. Incidentally, the award was announced only after getting due approval from the recipient. The Union Home Secretary had spoken to Bhattacharya’s wife who said “thanks.” Strangely Jairam politicised the award given to his senior party colleague Ghulam Nabi Azad but, had no issues when the Modi Government conferred the Padma Bhushan posthumously upon another Congress veteran Tarun Gogoi, the longest serving Chief Minister of Assam just a year ago in 2021. That announcement was made before the Assam assembly elections too. While honouring leaders from across the political aisle, Modi only emulated his predecessors PV Narasimha Rao and Dr Manmohan Singh. Rao honoured Morarji Desai with the Bharat Ratna and the UPA Government honoured Brajesh Mishra with the Padma Vibhushan. The award came on the day the Congress designated Azad on the list of star campaigners for Uttar Pradesh. Interestingly, other party colleagues Kapil Sibal, Anand Sharma, Manish Tewari and Shashi Tharoor welcomed the move. Was Jairam taking an aggressive stand because his RS term from Karnataka is coming to an end in July? Quite possibly.