MONEY POWER: The BJP has decided that it is simpler to buy MLAs outright for Rs100 crores or more and then induce a split in the legislative party. They did it in Goa where eight of the eleven MLAs including Digambar Kamat were induced to defect and now are doing it in Telangana to topple the TRS, K.Chandrashekar Rao government.

By Rajan Narayan

The Enforcement Directorate of Telangana in a raid exposed MLA pilot Rohit Reddy, who is part of the K Chandrashekar Rao’s cabinet, who received Rs100 crore to join the BJP.

WHEN there are rumors that each of the eight MLAs, who defected to the BJP were paid Rs50 to Rs100 crore, the people did not take it seriously. The right MLAs comprised 2/3rds of the Congress parliamentary legislative party. So much so that they constituted 2/3rds of the total number of 11 MLAs elected to the legislative assembly. While Michael and Delilah were the first to defect the magical figure of eight eluded the BJP. Till the most dramatic defection happened. It was a ghar wapasi for Digambar Kamat who had betrayed Manohar Parrikar and joined the Congress way back in 2002.
Clearly the MLAs were paid large sums of money to defect. Nobody believes they joined the BJP for love of the party. Particularly, since there was no hope of getting a kodel. There is, however, serious talk that Digambar Kamat as a senior most member and a veteran member of the RSS, might be appointed as chief minister just before the 2024 election. When Digambar was asked why he had defected to the BJP he remarked that only money is God in today’s times.
The BJP policy seems to be that if you cannot defeat the opposition in the elections you can always purchase them after the election. Particularly those MLAs who do not get cabinet berths of any positions of power in the cabinet. For the first time they have been caught red handed in the case of Telangana.
A recent expose is that Rs100 crore was given to pilot Rohit Reddy of the Telangana ruling party. An enforcement raid revealed that Rs100 crore unaccounted money was in the possession of Reddy. It is not only Reddy who had been approached. The objective of the BJP is to take over the government of the state. Unfortunately, with the BJP, K Chandrashekar Rao has been part of the Mamata Banarjee-led NDA, which hopes to pick up a joint fight against the BJP in the parliamentary elections coming up in 2024.
THE BJP has not even been able to capture all the northern states. For instance, it has not been able to either bribe or vote out Arvind Kejriwal from the national capital, Delhi. Indeed, Kejriwal has repeatedly managed to win by more than 2/3rd majority. Realizing that the central government would never let him function in New Delhi, Kejriwal has managed to capture Punjab.
The politics of money power does not work in Punjab because here the farmers cannot forget how the BJP at the center treated them during their long three-year agitation. In any case Punjab is a rich state and does not need BJP money.

TUKDA TUKDA
THE greatest opportunity for the BJP is the tukda, tukda states. Goa is an ideal example where neither the BJP nor the Congress have any strong leaders. Nobody in Goa is interested in which party he/she belongs to as long as they are assured of some position of power. Corruption is so widespread that the loyalty if every MLA is suspect. Even the top leaders of the Congress will jump if they are offered the right price.
Modi and Amit Shah follow the principle of their friend, the late industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani. Who use to tell everybody that everyone has a price. The task is to find out how much will tempt him or her. Dhirubhai has said he had a leather chapaal and a golden chappal. I suppose he useD the golden chappal to get Girilal Jain, the then very distinguished editor of the `Times of India’ to accept 10,000 Reliance shares. I was made the same offer but like a fool I had refused. The 10,000 shares would have been worth Rs500 crore now.
Only the BJP has this kind of money to play its money games. It has the backing of Dhirubhai Ambani, Gautam Adani and other similar mindset rich industrialists in the country. Nobody knows how much money Narendra Modi has collected for his Prime Minister’s Welfare Fund. According to government spokespersons it is a private fund and Modi does not need to submit any accountability.
How are these huge amounts of money running into thousands and crores of transfers? A key link in the transfer of funds is the casino business. Or what is called the hawala operations. An agent of the BJP sends a message to his counterpart on the casino ship. The casino agent gets the cashier debit receipts on the account of the BJP and the cashier gives cash to the BJP agent. This is how the bribing game is organized.
With the enforcement rates exposing the bribery game in Telengana the purchase and sales of MLAs will not stop. It will just go underground. The problem is we have no MLAs of character like MLA Carlos Alvares who refused a huge offer to join the BJP. For Digambar it was an act of frustration with the Congress leadership. He cannot live without power just as a fish cannot live without water.