Satire: An open letter from an aspiring PM candidate

Speculation about who will lead the country after the next general election is rife.

Here, one candidate explains why he's the best.

Friends, Bharatiyas and countrymen,

I write this not to bury the truth about myself, but to expose the falsehoods of others. For oft the good that men like me do is never heard, while the wrongs -- entirely imaginary ones of course -- are broadcast long and loud by those infernal media machines.

Since I am confident I will be your Pradhan Mantri soon, it's only right that I be open and frank with you, unlike the incumbent who seems afraid of coming before a microphone and mumbles into it when he does.

As you know, my fellow countrymen, I had said in the Vidhan Sabha that no one is above the law. Now some people took that to mean that I am not above the law myself.

How stupid can you get? Of course, I meant the Ehsan Jafris and others of his religious persuasion who actually had the nerve to think they are equal to us Hindus in our own state.

As anyone who has put foot in my beloved state of late will know, it is actually two states -- us and them. And as a patriotic Hindutvawadi I will make sure it stays that way.

For espousing this noble cause I am being day and night vilified by some persons. Some time ago, if you remember, there was a big hue and cry because these enemies of mine had put out a complete falsehood that the Special Investigation Team had summoned me!

Baapre baap! Can anyone summon me? In my state and in my party, it's I who do the summoning. Then, naturally, when I did not appear before this SIT, they accused me of defying the SIT.

My beloved countrymen, I have defied more important entities than SIT -- like the Constitution of India, for example, which declares all faiths to be equal. Ha, ha, good one!

Here I am only exposing the lies of those who said, for example, that SIT had summoned me on March 21. Now, March 21 was a Sunday. How they can summon me on a Sunday? Who works on a Sunday?

So you see how this is all one big disinformation campaign against me. One of my faithful mouthpieces explained this Sunday business at great length and passion on television at that time, showing what all lies it is.

That has not stopped my detractors. Neither have all those advertisements I have been putting out which proclaim the safety and unity of my state.

Now they are saying that this latest Naroda Patiya judgment means I am in some way implicated.

Here I am, all ready to bring development to the country and lead it just as I have been doing in my state (that Ratan Tata fell for my pitch hook, line and sinker, hee! hee!) and yet there are these bugbears who keep going on and on about what happened 10 years ago.

But not to worry, my fellow countrymen, I can fix them. I can fix anything. I've been doing it for ten years.

But that doesn't mean I don't feel pain, unbearable pain.

Some people think only those who were raped and had their loved ones killed and their homes destroyed feel pain.

But what about me? As I told you in my earlier open advertisement, 'I feel unbearable pain, but decided to maintain silence in the belief that the due process of law would take its own course.'

But, instead, I am hounded for not stopping all those rapes and killings that occurred on my watch.

So maybe I was taking a nap -- several naps perhaps -- while all that was going on.

Maybe I was having my hair cut or relaxing in my garden with no television and newspapers.

Really, it is I who am the victim not those couple of people -- oh all right, couple of thousands of people -- who were raped, killed, destroyed etc because I chose to have a nap at the time they were being killed, raped etc.

Some people are saying I wasn't having a nap and that I was very much awake and ordering the police to stay away from these troubled areas.

Tell me, why should our brave policewallahs get hurt by interfering? I was only thinking about their welfare.

By writing this open letter, my beloved countrymen, I hope I have convinced you that I am innocent, no matter what SIT or the courts or all those committees for justice and whatnot say.

I am ready to go anywhere to campaign, including Bihar, if Nitishji would permit it and Amrika if Obama will allow me in.

I am also ready for anyone to campaign here in my state -- in fact, I am insisting that Rahul baccha should do so, but the poor fellow seems to have given up the fight after losing Uttar Pradesh. They just don't know how to brazen it out, these youngsters, like I have done.