“Unka Sankalp, Vipareet Bharat” “Sab ka naash, Sab ka Vinaash”

April 09, 2024

By Aravind Bhatikar

SANJAY Singh, the fiery AAP member of the Rajya Sabha, was released on bail by the Supreme Court on April 3, after the ED failed to give any satisfactory reason for keeping him in jail for more than 6 months without trial in the so called liquor excise scam.
In the mega rally of INDIA group at the Ramlila Maidan in Delhi on March 31, 2024 all leaders without exception condemned the Narendra Modi government for foisting false cases on AAP leaders and also for jailing two sitting chief ministers.
“The Indian Express” story of April 2, listing the names of the leaders from the Opposition parties who crossed over to the BJP after being hounded/arrested by the ED/CBI, and who had earned reprieve after crossing over to the BJP, reconfirms the truth that the BJP under Modi and Shah is the most corrupt party in the country.
Skeletons tumbling out of various BJP cupboards after the Supreme Court compelled the SBI to spill the beans are proving beyond doubt that the BJP under Modi and Shah is the author and the home of the biggest scam of all times, not only in India but possibly in the entire world.
On the day when the mega rally was on the Ramlila Maidan in Delhi was drowned in the Opposition uproar against BJP’s corruption and atrocities, Narendra Modi was yelling before his painstakingly shepherded crowd in Meerut about his resolve to fight corruption.
Modi’s high-pitch rhetoric against corruption is becoming more frequent and more pathetic as new stories of corrupt mega deals between the BJP and corporates hit the press and the social media every day.
The plethora of corrupt deals exposed by independent analysts of the Reporter’s Collective, Scroll, News Minute, News Laundry, ADR, etc, may make previous corruption by the BJP look like kid stuff. It may not be possible for Modi and Shah to forget how cases were filed by the ED and the CBI against Himanta Biswa Sarma of Assam, Suvendu Adhikari of West Bengal, Maharashtra’s Ajit Pawar, Chhagan Bhujbal, Praful Patel, etc, and how all these and many more like these were coerced into joining the BJP/NDA much before the Supreme Court exposed the electoral bonds scam.
Modi is only 73 years old and in all probability has not yet entered a state of amnesia. Why then, does he still boast of fighting against corruption? Can Modi forget that on June 27, 2023 he reiterated in Bhopal his “Modi Guarantee” that he would punish NCP leaders who were involved in a scam of Rs 70,000 crore and how four days later on July 1 Ajit Pawar was coerced to split the NCP and join the NDA as deputy chief minister of the Eknath Shinde government?
Doesn’t Modi remember that ED/CBI had filed cases against Praful Patel for the latter’s alleged involvement in Aircraft leasing case when he was the Civil Aviation Minister in the erstwhile UPA government? Doesn’t Modi remember that the CBI has now withdrawn cases against Praful Patel after he has joined NDA? Doesn’t Modi remember the most recent mega corrupt deal between the BJP and Bharti Airtel group? But for the Supreme Court’s intervention, this deal might never have come to light. Bharti Airtel group was given the spectrum license after Modi government passed an Act enabling it to issue spectrum license without calling for tenders.
In 2012, the UPA government had issued 122 spectrum licenses without calling for tenders. Those licenses were cancelled by the Supreme Court since they were issued without inviting tenders. The Bharti Airtel group donated Rs236 crore by way of electoral bonds to the BJP while the process of issuing the spectrum license was pending with the BJP government.
Modi’s increasing rhetoric at his rallies on how he is fighting against corruption, especially in the light of the electoral bond scam operative since 2018 and exposed by the Supreme Court in 2024, suggests that he has either a pathological habit of repeatedly telling lies to his countrymen or has a firm belief in his invincibility, and that Indian voters are so naïve that they would believe all his claims without exception.
It is time WE, THE PEOPLE call his bluff and free the country from the evil influence of dictators and the grip of communal forces. It is the people who have to protect the Constitution, if they do not do it nobody else will do it.

April 09, 2024
MODIGATE 2

MODI’S raving and ranting about INDIA group’s “parivarvad” and “bhrashtachar” is getting more desperate as the first phase of the Lok Sabha election comes closer every day. The inevitable doubts about Modi’s ability to defend his non-performance on substantive issues like employment, inflation, housing, agriculture, corruption etc are spreading far and wide everyday.
In a recent NDA rally in Bihar, Modi as usual spent most of his time castigating the Congress and the INDIA group for their “parivarvad.” Tejaswi Yadav and other INDIA group leaders promptly nailed Modi’s hypocrisy by pointing out that 13 Lok Sabha candidates of NDA in Bihar belong to extended families of politicians either currently holding office or who were until recently in power. At a time when 13 out of 40 candidates in Bihar (33%) hail from the NDA “parivar,” Modi’s ranting about the “parivarvad” in INDIA group strengthens public perception that Modi is suffering from a short-term memory loss or has begun to live in a make-believe world of his own.
Doesn’t Modi remember that Defense Minister Rajnath Singh’s son Pankaj Singh, is an MLA from Noida constituency in Uttar Pradesh? Doesn’t Modi remember that Anil Antony, son of former Defense Minister of India A K Antony has joined the BJP and is now the BJP candidate for the Lok Sabha election from Pathanamthitta in Kerala? How can Modi forget prominent names like Maneka Gandhi, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ajit Pawar, Raj Thakarey — all members of well-known political parivar – who were either coerced into joining the BJP or were rewarded generously for shifting loyalties to the BJP?
Has Modi forgotten that the BJP legislative party in Goa has three husband-wife teams as MLAs viz Vishwajeet and Diviya Rane, Atanasio and Jeniffer Monserratte and Michael and Delilah Lobo?
Talking of “parivarvad,” what are the cricket credentials of Jay Shah who is today the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)? BCCI is the richest cricket entity in the world; its revenues in 2022-2023 were more than Rs16,000 crore. Amit Shah, Jay Shah’s father, was the vice-president of the Gujarat Cricket Association from 2009 when Narendra Modi, the then chief minister of Gujarat, was the president of the Gujarat Cricket Association. Amit Shah became the president of the GCA in 2014 when Narendra Modi became India’s prime minister. Jay Shah, at the age of 31, became the secretary of the BCCI in 2019.
Why should Indian voters tolerate Modi’s hypocrisy on “parivarvad” day-in and day-out? Isn’t it time WE, THE PEOPLE give a firm message to Narendra Modi that he should stop talking about “parivarvad” and start explaining why he could not deposit Rs15 lakh in every citizen’s bank account, why he could not create the promised two crore jobs per year during the last 10 years, why he could not stop the death of 750 farmers during the farmers’ agitation in 2020-21, why he could not double farmers’ income as promised, why he could not arrest inflation and why he could not stop the BJP from being the most corrupt political party in India?
If Narendra Modi cannot answer all the above questions, he will have no right to continue as our prime minister. It is time WE, THE PEOPLE start working to throw out Modi’s irresponsible and corrupt regime and give ourselves a better future and a better India.

April 12, 2024
MODIAGATE-3

FOR a few days after a five-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court headed by the CJI DY Chandrachud declared the Electoral Bond Scheme as unconstitutional and illegal, Narendra Modi stopped giving his “Modi guarantee” of punishing corrupt politicians in the Opposition. He seems to be having a firm belief in the adage that “public memory is short” and that he could replay the tune on the subject of corruption in every public meeting.
The INDIA group does not seem to have succeeded in taking the electoral bond scam issue to voters, though this scam alone has a potential of throwing out the Modi government, the way the public perception of the alleged Bofors scam throughout Rajiv Gandhi government and later, a much more powerful propaganda blitzkrieg on the so called 2G spectrum scam throughout the UPA government.
The Rafale fighter aircraft purchase in 2015, which was dubbed by Arun Shourie as the biggest scam in the history of free India, the demonetization of Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes by Modi in 2016, the administrative failure of the Defense ministry in 2019 facilitating the terrorist attack on the CRPF convoy in Jammu & Kashmir killing 40 jawans and the general attack by the BJP government on the Federal structure of the Indian Republic – all these issues should have been highlighted to expose the corruption and failures of the BJP government, but their lethal potential remains to be fully exploited by the opposition.
The Rafale deal left many questions unanswered and suggested that there was massive corruption in the deal between the BJP government and the Dassault aircraft company in France. Modi visited Paris on March 25, 2015 to finalize the deal with Dassault with support from the government of France. Modi purchased 36 Rafale jet fighters for a price of about Rs1,700 crore per fighter jet as against Rs715 crore per similar jet fighter which was to be finalized by the earlier UPA government which was planning to purchase 126 jet fighters.
The late Manohar Parrikar, the then Defense Minister of India, was in Goa declaring open a government fish stall in Navelim near Margao, on the day when Modi announced in Paris the purchase of 36 jet fighters. Parrikar later told reporter in a TV interview that he did not know anything about the deal and that he had no issues against the deal since it was entered into by the prime minister.
Yashwant Sinha, a former finance minister and Arun Shourie, a former IT minister, both ministers in the Vajpayee government from 1999 to 2004, along with Adv Prashant Bhushan petitioned the Supreme Court seeking an enquiry into the whole Rafale deal. The three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi rejected the petition. CJI Ranjan Gogoi retired from the Supreme Court on November 17, 2019 and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the President of India on March 16, 2020 i.e. within 4 months of his retirement.
The INDIA group should revive the demand for a judicial enquiry or promise to Institute such an enquiry if it forms the government, without, of course, compromising the security of the country.
The demonetization of Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes was another scam ostensibly to root out the black money but in reality to enable thousands of black money hoarders to convert their black money into white. Justice Nagarathna of the Supreme Court, recently confirmed that 98% of the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes in the country were exchanged for the other legal tender notes after demonetization. Demonetization, instead of rooting out black money, helped all the black money to become “white.”
The country is still suffering from the long term damage done by Narendra Modi’s impulsive and reckless decision.
The INDIA group should promise to voters that if voted to power they would institute an enquiry into the whole issue.
The electoral bond scam is still in the process of throwing out more skeletons from BJP cupboards. The Pulwama massacre of 40 jawans has many untold stories but more about them later.