Will ‘SC-sponsored slap’ bring parachuted Rekha Gupta closer to her people?

New Delhi: A second bench of the Supreme Court is set to deliver its order today on a controversial suo motu decision about stray dogs. 

A three-judge special bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and N V Anjaria had on August 14 reserved its order in the matter.

A two-judge bench of the apex court had on August 11 passed a slew of directions, including ordering the authorities in Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) to start picking up stray dogs from all localities "at the earliest" and relocate the canines to dog shelters.

It is obvious that the Chief Justice of India, B R Gavai, must have considered the earlier ruling a reckless order in the circumstances and therefore sent it to another bench. This is how judges’ mistakes are covered. It is not as if the CJI can openly say his own judges were wrong.

Perhaps because of that compulsion, a rehearing had to be staged, and the one to pay the price was Delhi CM Rekha Gupta, who ended up being slapped.

Later, several conspiracy theories may well be spun, but from the details available so far, it appears the CM was assaulted for showing her commitment to implement that reckless Supreme Court order.

NewsDrum had clearly said that the issue is so emotional that it could prove to be costly for the Modi government. Whatever happens to the Modi government, Rekha Gupta has become the first BJP CM to be slapped.

Earlier attacks on leaders were dismissed as political conspiracies, and most of them more or less turned out to be just that.

Former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal was assaulted multiple times in his 11-year tenure. Few leaders have such thick skin. Until he lost the election and left office, he stood firm in the belief that the public was with him.

But Rekha Gupta is, in recent memory, the first BJP CM to be slapped for her own actions. Remove the political-conspiracy angle, and she may be the first CM in the country to be slapped by someone from the public. She is also the first woman CM to face such an incident.

All this only because she did not oppose the Supreme Court’s order. The overage-vehicle matter was similar, but perhaps not as emotional to provoke a slap.

Will today’s judgment take note of this? Will the judges who passed a reckless order, after seeing stray dogs inside the Supreme Court premises, apologise to Rekha Gupta, given that it was their finicky order that led to the CM being hit?

Unlikely. Judges have thicker skin than politicians, and on top of that, they enjoy a protective layer of the Constitution.

Whichever way the system whitewashes this, one thing is clear: leaders who want to go among the people must stop playing with public sentiment.

For Rekha Gupta, the lesson came very quickly, though. After the overage-vehicles episode, she got hit in the very next flashpoint. 

The fault is not hers alone. Had the people elected her, perhaps she would have valued public sentiment more. She was chosen by Modi; her devotion is to Modi. What does she have to do with the public? If only that devotion had saved her.

Whatever the spin, Modi did not ask Rekha Gupta to issue a statement supporting the SC order. So to say the slap was meant for Modi is not correct. But the echo would certainly have reached Lok Kalyan Marg.

There is a lesson for the BJP too: it must take better care of the security of its parachuted CMs.