JAUNDICED SAFFRON OUTLOOK;
Notwithstanding the Modi government's pretence and protestation that there was nothing political about the International Yoga Day celebrations, sections of the Sangh Parivar determinedly saw it as a Hindutva project. A needless and ugly controversy has been kicked up by right-wing cyber warriors over the non-presence of the Vice-President of India , Hamid Ansari, from the mega event on Sunday. An RSS senior functionary, now "on deputation" to the BJP, has heaved in with suggestive tweets about Mr. Ansari's non-participation. The implication is all too obvious, all too narrow-minded, and all too disquieting to be brushed off as a familiar social media triviality. 

So unhappy and unpalatable was the insinuation that the Vice-President Office did well to clarify that Hamid Ansari was not asked to the yoga celebrations, and as per the standing operative protocol, he could not participate in a public event unless invited to do so by the minister concerned. The RSS cyber warriors had also alleged-wrongly -- that the Rajya Sabha TV, a public- funded channel, had blacked out the Rajpath spectacle, starring Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was left unsaid but did not need to be said that the Vice-President, in his ex-officio capacity as the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, presides over the RSTV. This allegation, too, has been refuted.

It is obvious that the right-wing hotheads have recklessly and revealingly made the Vice-President's presence a wedge issue. A wedge-issue ploy aims, deliberately and provocatively, to kickstart a mischievous political game by raising a seemingly innocuous controversy. Those who have been fielded in this game are senior and influential voices and are often heard as representing the ruling establishment's private thinking.  As per the Constitution of India, the Vice-President is neither beholden nor accountable to the ruling party of the day.  It is constitutionally wrong and politically unwise to expect an incumbent to associate himself with every single project of the government.