Back against the wall with the opposition holding Wikileaks cables on the cash-for-votes scam to its head, the UPA government really needed a hero or a miracle to save face in Parliament today. None came to its rescue.

This is one dragon which even that aging Galahad of the Congress - Pranab Mukherjee - failed to slay.

Mukherjee's three-point rebuttal was as weak a defence as they come.

Beginning with the weakest of the three, that the matters of the 14th Lok Sabha can not be debated in the 15th Lok Sabha, we ask "why not?" Has the Bofors case not been around for decades now? Didn't UPA2 rush to point out that the first-come, first serve policy for telecom sector was a policy of the NDA government from the 13th Lok Sabha? Governance is not subject to Parliament terms. It spills over tenures, Mukherjee should have kept in mind.

He also argued that the correspondence between a sovereign nation and its mission has diplomatic immunity, and therefore, it can neither be denied nor be confirmed. It is hard to believe that the Congress veteran is capable of such political naiveté. The documents may enjoy diplomatic immunity but does UPA enjoy immunity as well? The documents are now in the realm of the public. We are well past the time when these fawning courtesies countries accord each other could have been invoked. The contents are damning and the government has to answer.

More importantly, the disembodied voice of the opposition had not asked for a ratification of the documents. It had asked for the government to bear onus and take action (always the same - the removal of the prime minister). Mukherjee's ill-geared stab at deflection, therefore, is a redundancy. And also a particularly strong hint at the grand old party's guilt in the matter, one could be prompted to think.

His final argument is one we have all made out of desperation, when cornered. The "Can you prove it?" manoeuvre. He, of course, deferring to the judiciary, added "in court" to the question. Ludicruous as it may seem, it is Pranab Mukherjee - Chanakya of the Congress - who fails to realise that judicial opinion in this case would be much less damning than public opinion.