The genesis of the problem with Indian politicians, as these columns and many others have said before, lies within a few inches of each other: their brain, and their mouth. Like good hand-eye coordination required of a batsman, it’s the brain-mouth coordination that is of key importance for a neta.

The problem begins when there’s a malfunction and the latter (mouth) shoots off before the former (brain) has had sufficient time to collate and crunch all information.

Like in the case of the blast outside the BJP office in Bangalore on Wednesday morning. Minutes after a blast in Malleshwaram locality of the city around 10.30 am left many injured (reports late in the afternoon put the number of injured at 16, including at least eight policemen), Shakeel Ahmed, senior Congress leader and former minister of state for home, let his Twitter handle take over from his brain. “If the blast near BJP's office in Bangalore is a terror attack, it will certainly help the BJP politically on the eve of election,” Ahmed tweeted at 11.52 am.

That, mind you, was after the national investigation agency (NIA) was called out to check the spot and before its officers reached the scene. And also before the state DGP and the union or state home minister had had their say.

Within minutes, as a live update account on firstpost.com reported, a Twitter account for the BJP in Karnataka retaliated, “Congress Spokesperson Shakeel Ahmad’s tweet on blasts in Bangalore is insensitive and inhumane.”

Insensitive? Surely. Inhumane? Yup. Callous? Of course. But more than anything else, it’s stupid and completely unwarranted. And the last is an adjective suitable for the gentleman/lady who sent out that tweet from the BJP account: unwarranted, more or less if not totally. In a state that goes to assembly polls on May 5, and for which Wednesday was the last day for filing of nominations, the ruling party is required to do more after a blast in the state capital than replying to inane tweets from the leader of another party. That rebuttal, mind you, is also dabbling in politics — and that, too, runs the risk, though relatively less, of being seen as insensitive within minutes of a tragedy.

Within minutes of all this, Karnataka home minister R Ashok, who reached the blast site around 1 pm, faced his own moment of brain-mouth dissonance.
After appealing people to remain calm (correctly), he said the culprits will be caught and punished (very good) and that the target was the BJP (well, the probe has barely started). As icing on the hit-the-buzzer-before-others cake, Ashok also pronounced it a “clear case of terror act”, one "targeted at the BJP, our senior leaders and workers". And if there was room for any doubt, he even reiterated: "Hundred percent... it is targeted at BJP workers.”

Have we all become Mamata Banerjee clones? Do we believe in assertion first, and investigation only afterward?

Lest anyone dared forget the Shakeel Ahmed tweet, Ashok’s fellow BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain took the attack to the Congress again late afternoon. He called a media conference and said a lot, the gist of which went like: “Has the Congress stooped so low that it has now started searching for politics even in a blast?... His (Shakeel Ahmed’s) comment will act as salt on the wounds of victims.”

Brave and all but, well, still unwarranted.

In Kolkata to take part in the eastern zonal council meeting, home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, an old victim of that temporary brain-mouth disorder as also diagnosed with foot-in-mouth disorder, salvaged the situation somewhat, saying, “I came to know of the Bangalore blast and will start an inquiry into the incident. I will also have interaction with the Karnataka government and the police department.”

Asked whether it was an act of terror, Shinde replied that this would be made known only after the probe was over, PTI reports.

Well, at least some semblance of order there!