The Karnataka unit of the BJP, which witnessed a bomb-blast outside its office a couple of days ago in Malleshwaram, Bangalore, in a suspected terror attack, relocated to Boston today. Within a few hours, it received a letter from PM Manmohan Singh, condemning the blasts in the strongest terms and expressing solidarity with the beleaguered state unit.
Speaking on the office shift, Karnataka’s Deputy CM, R Ashok, said “Yes, that’s right. The Karnataka BJP office has been shut down and we have relocated to Boston. The Prime Minister was so quick to condemn the blasts in Boston. If I’m not wrong, he did so even before President Obama did. He wrote a long letter about how he was deeply shocked and saddened by the outrageous terrorist attack, but I’m not sure if it went into his head when people at the PMO informed him about the Bangalore blast, as he is supposed to have said only two words – Theek Hai.”
“But it wasn’t so easy to get his condemnation. We assumed that he didn’t know about the blasts, because as is the usual case, he doesn’t know about many things in the country – he mostly finds things out from news on TV. So we made Indian news channels replay the bombing news with edited ticker messages like ‘Bomb blast outside BJP office in Boston’ etc. We waited for an hour or so and still didn’t receive anything. We were even kicking ourselves for taking up this futile exercise of relocation, before one idea flashed in my mind – I asked news channels to remove the word ‘BJP’ from the messages and they obliged and voila! It worked,” Ashok said.
“Within a minute, I received a fax from the PM – an exact copy of his message to President Obama.
I am deeply shocked and saddened by the outrageous terrorist attack yesterday. This senseless and cowardly act of violence has struck a city that has long stood as the symbol of openness, learning, innovation and enterprise. The people of India join me in condemning the attack in the strongest terms.
We stand in solidarity and sympathy with the bereaved families, the injured and the people. The attack serves as a tragic reminder of the evil of terrorism that still threatens our nation and lurks in our cities. It redoubles our resolve to remain unrelenting in our efforts to defeat terrorism and to defend and uphold the values that define our nation. We offer you our full support for the investigations into the attack.
“But we’re being criticized widely by all Chief Ministers of India. Everyone told me – dude, if you really wanted this letter, it is available with all of us – same words, same font, same typos… just different dates! We all have loads of these templates, we could’ve given you a copy! Why did you have to go all the way to Boston for this?” Ashok trailed off.