NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian politicians, already under fire from the public for failing to prevent the Mumbai attacks or for using them to try and win votes, cannot seem to stop blundering into even more trouble.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh took along his Bollywood actor son Riteish and one of India’s best-known film-makers when he visited the Taj hotel after it was cleared of militants on Saturday.
Participants in television talk shows were furious and Ram Gopal Varma, the film-maker, had to publicly deny that he went along with Deshmukh to gather material for a movie.
“The visit made the inspection tour almost look like a location scout for a film shoot,” the Times of India said on Tuesday.
At least 183 people were killed in the three-day rampage at luxury hotels, the main railway station and a Jewish centre in Mumbai.
Deshmukh, from the ruling Congress party, has offered to resign as chief minister over charges that the state government should have prevented the attacks.
His deputy R. R. Patil has already been sacked. He was quoted in newspapers as saying that the Mumbai carnage was a “small incident that can happen in big cities.”
The opposition has committed its share of gaffes as well.
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, a senior leader of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, said when asked about public anger against politicians after the attacks: “Some women wearing lipstick and powder have taken to the streets in Mumbai and are abusing politicians.”
The Communist Party chief minister of Kerala state, V. S. Achutanandan, was asked to leave when he arrived at the home of commando Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, who died in the attacks.
He was upset, and then seemed to toss an insult about the major’s residence when he told a TV news channel: “Not even a dog would have looked that way had it not been Sandeep’s house.”
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