Black “Maya”, Union bank and amnesia of opposition

Just a few days back Bahujan Samaj Party deposited ` 107Cr cash in in Union Bank of India account. Surely as the amount was huge a lot of attention will be drawn to that. This is not a newly opened account by BSP. It’s an old account and if such amounts were credited to the account via cash in past regularly there was no need to pay any attention to that. As any other person or party who primarily deals in cash can surely deposit such cash in account and there is a considerable history to such transactions. Naturally, no one including the IT department will pay much attention to that. And I am sure there would be such innumerable accounts where cash in huge amounts will be deposited without much of attention; even after 8^th November. Then what is the reason Mayawati’s BSP is attracting such a big attention? The answer lies in the history of that account. If there is a history of frequent deposits and withdrawals from that account there was no reason to enquire about it. However no such transaction has happened neither in past on BSP’s account. And cash deposits happened almost on daily basis immediately after announcement of demonetization. Any query by ED/IT if answered comprehensively by Mayawati and everything is legal, there is no reason to panic. But then why is it that Mayawati is angry with government?

All political parties get donations from various organizations, common man, etc… and they are exempt from income tax. Hence all political parties are able to gather huge amounts. If BSP was getting such huge donations and there is a history to that and such amounts are regularly deposited in the bank account, there is no reason why Mayawati should panic. However Mayawati’s anger indicates that things have not happened that way. Due to demonetization a huge cash would have become useless if it was not deposited in bank accounts. Obviously to save this amount from getting useless it was deposited in the bank account. That’s the truth. Now this can be true with any other political party. However the flip side of this is that such donations have not come to BSP in a day or two just before or after demonetization. This could be very old accumulated amount and was not deposited in banks regularly. Now that’s what is called “black money”. Such money is never declared with IT, election commission and hence does not have any accounting. This money is then spent in elections for “Laxmi Darshan” and many other purposes whose accounts are not kept. Such amount spent in cash too does not get reflected in income of the person to whom it is paid. Many people do this and this “un-accounted”, “untaxed” money is called black money. Today when I go to bank and deposit any amount above ` 2.5Lakh I have to justify about the source of money, how would Mayawati get an exemption?

If Mayawati is so confident about the source of such huge amount, she should just publish it. Instead she panicked and immediately called for a press conference played a blame game against Modi and BJP. But she did not reveal the source. Now that’s cheating. People don’t expect a blame game, just plain truth. From where this money has come!!! Normally if donations come to a party in cash below Rupees Twenty Thousand, there is no need to show such amounts in accounting or no submission is needed by IT or elections commission. All parties benefit out of that and take undue advantage. BJP is not exception to it!! Now it is very easy for Mayawati to say that she printed coupons and people have bought coupons and paid in cash. And such accounting of coupons can be shown and proven to IT and case can be closed. However this won’t happen. All parties including BJP does same but in practice take huge amounts from some other source and show it as coupons. And Mayawati has exactly been trapped in this. In fact demonetization was actually done to unearth such black transactions. Modi has taken the risk of inconveniencing common man only and only to unearth such black transactions.

Now who was in forefront to question demonetization? Who was continuously asking to show a black money hoarder in the queue for all these days? The strongest voice was of Mayawati. Now her account cash deposits prove, who was the black money hoarder. Her own party without standing in any queue deposited such huge cash in account. And surprisingly she has not shown the urgency to change the money with new currency for her party day to day expenses. A poor person cannot just go and deposit 5 notes in account. By depositing it in account won’t light his gas stove in his kitchen. He does not have a choice but to stand in queue for “changing” his legitimate money. Who did not stand in queue is Mayawati and has now ` 107Cr in her account. The people who hoard currency are the ones who don’t stand in queue. Common man struggles to make his ends meet every month and hence has to stand in queue. Surprisingly inspite of all the inconvenience this very common man has not complained. The complainants are those who did not stand in queue and still have crores of Rupees in their accounts.

Had people like Mayawati did all their transactions in an accounted manner by either cheque or through banking system, demonetization was not needed. There was no need to compulsorily deposit the cash in bank and the common man who was inconvenienced the most would not have stood in queues for past 50 days. Hence I say, the culprit of demonetization is not the government but such people who hoard cash worth few hundred crores in this warehouses. And demonetization was done to pull out such rats and shrews from their holes. And Mayawati is one of such many shrews.

Not only the common man who probably may not have gone in a bank anytime in life came to bank, but the black money hoarders who too never went to bank have been compulsorily dragged to the banks all across India. Did Mayawati not prove Modi right? And look at the irony, same Mayawati is asking which black money hoarder went to bank!!!

Today every day opens with news of ED or IT raiding some or the other hoarder of old currency or new currency or both. Did such raids happen in past with such a great intensity and reach? When such “maya” is being deposited in bank accounts, which “maya” is legitimate and which is black will be clarified in due course. When one IT notice for one big account has already created a big buzz, what will happen with such a huge data is scrutinized and notices sent!!! Time will tell what kind of “MAYA BAZAR” was happening for so many years. Till the opposition can keep mum on “maya” of Maya.

Demonetization, dry ATMs, queues, etc…

The day demonetization was announced by the PM (actually it should have been done by RBI) opposition has constantly targeted the PM. At each stage, opposition targeted the PM for mismanagement, long queues and inconvenience to people. The bigger agony for the opposition was the drying up of over 2.25 lakh ATMs across the country. ATM was the only means to withdraw cash (even if in small amounts) without much of hassle of paper work. Therefore it was inevitable for all of us to see long queues in front of ATMs and that’s what opposition and media was busy in propagating.

Then it was noted that the ` 2000 notes were small and a re-calibration of ATMs was necessary. Although the calibration of ATMs were undertaken on a war footing and after a month almost all the ATMs are now re-calibrated, why is it that the notes are still not available and ATMs are still running dry?

The opposition have missed a golden opportunity to corner the government on this point. They kept on speaking irrelevant things and completely missed the relevant point. When government is busy saying that ample currency notes are available, why the ATMs are running dry?

The re-calibration of machines was undertaken immediately. Many ATMs were done in a short span of time. Yet what is the reason that the notes were not reaching them? It is interesting to note that neither RBI nor the government loads the ATMs with cash. It is done by banks. Maximum cash which is available with banks is normally loaded on to ATMs to avoid any rush at its internal counters and further the delays. It was in banks interest to load maximum cash available with them on to ATMs. Yet what is the reason why banks have resorted to keep maximum cash with them and load very less cash on to ATMs?

The recent raids conducted by government agencies on hoarders of old and new cash provides the answer for that. Arrested officials of various banks proves the point. These very officials were hand in glove to provide huge amount of cash to their “favourites” and deprive the common man of his minimum requirements of the cash. The seizures of large amounts of cash from various parts of the country is a proof of such illegal hoardings of cash. One of my friend did write on facebook about the maximum amount of cash a person can hold. Legally, there is no limit till you can prove the legal source of such funds. However such hoarders are the prime culprits in depriving the common man his legitimate right.

The opposition could have researched this thoroughly and asked relevant questions in parliament and cornered the government on this mismanagement. Finmin, Arun Jaitley would have to accept on record about this mismanagement and failure in curbing black money and would have to give assurance to curb such illegal activities by bank officials. Now the government has started action against such officials, few of them will reach their fate. However the opposition kept on talking irrelevant points and gave a chance to government to escape. The opposition has lost a golden opportunity of taking credit of unearthing such illegal activities and compelling the government to act. That way the mismanagement could have been completely bought down long back and opposition could have also taken these actions to public and how their actions compelled the government to act. This was not done as opposition was busy in projecting inconvenience (which was there but people were ok with that!!) The longer delays, mismanagement was “convenient” to opposition. In fact their behavior suggests that they are more interested in keeping status quo than resolving the problems of common people.

The opposition does not seem to learn from their mistakes, keep on doing same mistakes of opposing Modi and talking about Modi. The government on other hand has gathered all the sympathy by unearthing the cash hoarders and are successful in projecting that they did their job but few bad people in system failed the government.

Surgical Strikes And Proofs....

A note journalist named Shahid Siddiqui said this around 4 years back “Stop criticizing Narendra Modi. Modi will make use of each and every criticism and become more and more powerful.” Nobody, absolutely nobody had paid any heed to him at that time and nobody who is today criticising Modi, is willing to learn the lesson. Modi in turn has not only become more and more and more powerful in past 14 years but has used all the stones thrown at him to build a bridge from Gujarat to Delhi to become the Prime Minister of India. He did not stop there and now is on his way to become one of the prominent leaders of world whose words carry importance. 

The way “International Solar Alliance” was formed and the way Modi gathered support for that can be a small proof of Narendra Modi being considered a good leader of international stature. Anyone who is interested can click on the link and read for themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_countries

On the other hand, his political opponents in other parties are busy asking for proofs of surgical strikes. They have very conveniently (Modi’s convenience) fallen into the trap which Modi laid very cleverly.

Let’s put things in chronological order.

• Uri happens
• Modi goes to Kerala and passes some political comments
• Everyone is dejected, even his supporters. No action, only words?
• Sudden “Surgical Strike”
• Entire country is euphoric. Media, people, are happy.
• Modi gathers all kind of goodwill again.
• Opponents don’t know what to do, so they do the easiest, praise army (not Modi)
• Suddenly there is a clip from CNN about POK and each and every opponent of Modi is up with a demand of proofs of surgical strikes.

There are a few missing links in above points.

• The announcement of Surgical strike was made by Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh. He himself said that the proofs are there with the army.
• Announcement was not made by political establishment.
• Modi has not said a word about surgical strikes.

Had the announcement been made by any of minister or the PM himself, it would have been termed as a political statement. If proofs were given immediately, it would have been said that they were provided for gaining political mileage. Hence, Modi cleverly left it to army to do the talk and himself kept out of all the controversy.

Neither Modi nor any of his ministers took any credit or extract any political mileage of these strikes till the point opposition demanded proofs. Now since the announcement was done by army, a demand of proof should be deemed to be demanded from army not political establishment or the government. Since the rhetoric of asking proofs is growing by the day, such proofs may be made public and guess who will benefit out of that? Ofcourse Modi, who else? Hence I say, whatever Modi does, he has politics in it and his opponents don’t understand him.

Now in between all this rhetoric of demands of proof, Congress is claiming of such strikes in past. Here an important point is to be noted that nobody has yet asked a proof of earlier surgical strikes. Congress even doesn’t know whether the proof of such strikes exists or not. If the proof of recent strikes are provided, there will surely be a demand of proofs of earlier strikes and Congress or any opposition are not in a position today to provide them!!! That clearly means, Congress and other opposition will fall flat on their face if proofs of recent strikes are provided. Congress will have a new stamp on their face, “liars” apart from various tags such as corrupt, dynastic political party.

This is called a calculated effort. Work is done by army but by providing proofs, beneficiary is Modi and BJP. If today sudden elections are held in Gujarat, BJP will be winning with a landslide majority.

Modi is not only a workaholic PM but a very clever politician. His smallest actions has politics. He cleverly anticipates the consequences of his each action and has mostly a plan ready for each and every possible outcome and reactions from his opponents. Now also it is not impossible that he has put a calculated trap for opposition. He may have told army to claim surgical strikes, but cleverly exclude giving proofs. When time comes and rhetoric grows, slap opposition by throwing those proofs on their face. 

This man is not only different, but completely eligible to rule India for next 15 years at least.

"Acche Din", Modi Bhakt, etc... Brief translation from Bhau Torsekar's blog....

In the recent past since May 2014, a clear trend has been seen among the people of India. Some Indian people are clearly divided into 3 categories. I said some Indians because a major section of Indian society, much bigger than the total of these three categories, has clearly stayed away from these three categories. They are busy with their day to day work and are least bothered about what all things and infighting is happening between these categories of people. However they still enjoy all the fighting as that has probably become their day to day dose of entertainment on social media, television news channels.

The first category of people are those who think quite rationally, analyze the policies of government, praise wherever required and wherever required criticize too. This category of people are called “Modi Bhakt”. At the exact opposite end are people who are either completely biased “for” Modi or “anti” Modi. Their opinions are made by only one word, Modi. Such people are called “Modi Bhrasht”. Their daily opinions are completely based on only one point. Either they support Modi or they bash Modi. The third category of people are “Modi Trast”. Such kind of people are still (after 2 years) unable to digest that Modi has defeated them, their ego and became the Prime Minister of India.

MODI BHAKT

“Modi Bhakt” are not necessarily the BJP members or supporters. They may not even have their own political opinion. However these Bhakts are made by people who have seen all the bad things said for Modi by his bashers. They don’t blindly support Modi, but from their heart they believe that Modi should succeed in his mission. They have seen all the rhetoric against Modi for past 15 years. And a strong belief that Modi has done no wrong (which eventually was proven later in 2015) made these people support and be supportive of Modi in his mission. These people are not also supporters of BJP. The situation in which Modi has emerged as a contestant for position of Prime Ministers, has made them believe that today there is no one else who is fit for the job. And Modi was clever enough to recognize this group to take a plunge into the race of becoming PM. There were and are many in BJP even today who don’t want Modi as PM. People have not forgotten Advani’s reaction when Modi was made the PM candidate. This group does not have any personal expectations from Modi. But they have a firm belief that Modi will take this country forward. And therefore this group of people is not ashamed to call themselves as a “Modi Bhakt”. This was proven when at a request of Modi, 1.25cr people gave up their gas subsidy. These are the real “Modi Bhakts”. These people are least interested in bull shit of other people’s comments which triggered the intolerance debate. They are bothered only with what Modi is doing. And hence when there are Modi bashers, these Bhakts are at the forefront to defend Modi.

MODI BHRASHT

The second category is called “Modi Bhrasht”. This category consists of people who are extreme likers of Modi and extreme haters of Modi. The likers think that Modi is an Avtari Purush who is born to make India a 1^st world country. They are so much in liking of Modi that they feel that their day to day problems such as trains getting late, water logging in heavy rains will be solved just by doing Modi Jaap. These people believe whatever Modi does is the last word and it is as good as “Akashwani”. Such people then also start supporting even wrong actions of Modi government. The Anti Modi in this category are people who don’t want to understand, accept that Modi is a democratically elected Prime Minister and has to be accepted that way. For these people whatever Modi says even if it correct, will be wrong. Their day starts and ends with only one word. Modi. If we analyse in detail, it would be amply clear that both Pro Modi and Anti Modi are of the same category. People who cannot think rationally. One is hell bent on making Modi a god and other is hell bent on making Modi a devil.

MODI TRAST

The third category of people are “Modi Trast”. These people are the ones who are unable to digest the fact that Modi became PM even after 12 years of hate, bad publicity, wrong accusations, etc… They keep wondering how this guy has turn tides and made fool out of us!!! These people are not necessarily against Modi from today, 2014, or even 2002. They were “trast” even before that. Because Modi is a member of RSS and has grown up with RSS ideology. And therefore once he has relationship with RSS, it becomes unnecessary to further say anything. They even are not interested in what was the subject on which discussion was going on. Being sarcastic is the primary qualification of being Modi Trast. When the American Congressman give a standing ovation or clap several times for Modi, these people go on to say, “so what? people clap when a clown shows his art”. While saying that, these people completely forget that they too clap for somebody, sometime!!! These people can’t sleep properly as they cannot digest that even after they doing almost anything on earth to block Modi from going to USA, he is given a red carpet welcome, Obama shares a good cordial relation with him, etc… And therefore such people whenever see something good for Modi, Modi being praised somewhere, start immediately bashing Modi. And in that effort even if they do a complete U turn on their own old opinion, that does not shame them. Excellent example is GST. These people then question the perfect legitimate statements of Modi!!! Tomorrow if Modi says, Sun rises in East, these people will question even that, just because it is said by Modi.

Even as the Islamic countries celebrate International Yog Day, many Muslims from India participate in the celebrations, this category is busy labelling Yog as a “Hindutva conspiracy”. Till such time Modi remains active in Indian politics, this category of people will have a rog, called being “Modi Trast”.

The nation is fortunate that there are Millions of Indians who are neither Trast not Bhrasht. But simple Bhakts who think rationally and support and criticize Modi wherever required. Narendra Modi is in turn fully aware about such Bhrasht and Trast people and recognises that he cannot go behind these foolish people and hence can do something good for this country. Therefore for the past two years, he was able to provide a corruption free governance at the Centre. Finally I again reiterate. Not having “bure din” is having “ACCHE DIN”.

Absolute Power and Hitler

For the past 2 months there has been a discussion over the Congress rebellion in 2 states namely Arunachal Pradesh and now Uttarakhand. I am not an expert on this subject however some who proclaim to be experts in this subject have started a debate.

And the debate being “Is the Modi government in search for absolute power?”

That inspired me to write this short article. People may agree or disagree with my views and I will agree to disagree with some counter views. Without being a Hitler of course.

It all started when I responded to one tweet of a well “renowned” journalist when he tweeted whether Modi government want to gain absolute power. I responded back saying, absolute power is sometimes necessary, I like Hitler and there is a Hitler in every person, even the very journalist. Wow…. Like it always happens to that journalist, I am being trolled for my comments. There are people from different segments. Some gave me examples of Auschwitz and told me visit there. How I would not have born had my parents been there during those times. Some liked my tweet and some blasted me. 

All of them are right in their own thinking. But I agree to disagree with their thoughts. A simple reason for that is they did not understand me before they could tweet their reactions. Hitler has become a bad word in the world. And that is not wrong if the many bad qualities this person had, are considered. 

However, I have a strong objection to equating “Absolute power” to Hitler, the man who is mostly known for. Because there is an assumption that absolute power is always wrong.

The prime question is not whether Hitler is bad or not. He was a bad man and will remain so for centuries to come. Even if he had some good qualities they are forgotten due to his many bad qualities.

The prime question today is whether absolute power is bad. And if aspiring for absolute power is bad.

I believe in Hindu philosophy so I will try to explain what I believe. Each human being has good and bad qualities in him. A human who gathers more and more good qualities within him slowly becomes a saint and further becomes god and vice versa. Hindu philosophy thus believes that there were such good people in this history as Lord Ram, Lord Krishna, etc… who became exceptionally good human beings in their one life they lived that common people like us made them gods. Did these people have bad qualities in them? Of course yes. But then the bad qualities were to be searched with an electron microscope.

On the other hand there are many figures in the history who were bad. We all know them. They were the people who got killed by the good people Lord Ram and Krishna. Now a question arises were the bad people really bad? They were bad in the sense that they did whole lot of wrong things in life. Ravan was a well learned scholar, a wise king of Lanka. Yet we call him a bad man because he did something unforgivable. And so on there are many so called bad men in history of world. Hitler is one of them. And when I say, I like Hitler or for that matter even Ravan, I want to say that these so called bad men too had good qualities. And I like to take the good qualities from even a bad man.

Those qualities may be their leadership skills, their ability to unite their country against external threats.

I don’t see anything wrong Narendra Modi in aspiring for absolute power as long as he does it within the limits of constitution. Absolute power outside the constitution was by Ms. Indira Gandhi in 1975. Now that’s the so called bad man we all talk about. Does that mean she was an absolutely bad human being? No.

Having absolute power is not bad, aspiring for that is not bad. 

How you use the absolute power decides whether you become a Lord Krishna or a Ravan or for that matter Hitler. 

I Hope people who want me to visit Auschwitz have understood what I wanted to say. If not, please carry on with your trolls.

5 Questions to Arvind Kejriwal

The problem with a person who has branded himself as non-corruptible is that they cannot digest actions against him or his own people on charges of corruption. Such people are in a continuous self-praising mode. When somebody hurts their pride they almost scream against that and throw foul language, absurd arguments, etc…

There are many many such people in Indian politics, also in the BJP, but the most prominent name still remains Mr. Arvind Kejriwal.

The arguments of Kejriwal almost resemble the famous Deewar dialogue of the great Amitabh Bachchan: "Jao pehle us aadmi ka sign lekar aao jisne mere haath par ye likh diya tha…."

If CBI or for that matte any police department had to go by that logic, none of the accused in any scam, irregularities or crimes will ever be caught. Because then everyone will start shouting the same dialogue.

The anger of Kejriwal is understandable. Particularly when his one of the trusted lieutenants is questioned. But then he also should remember that in past 6 months his other 4 trusted people have been under scanner.

Once the CBI got raided 14 places in the NCR and Uttar Pradesh, a clearly unhappy Kejriwal said if CBI had to lay hands on his principal secretary Rajendra Kumar, the investigative agency should first nab ministers in the earlier Sheila Dikshit government.

Not stopping there Kejriwal went ahead to say "I will send my son to jail even, if there is evidence of wrongdoing against him."

His other argument is that CBI should have informed him and he would have acted.

1.  Does Kejriwal have a problem with CBI acting without informing him or on  the complete action at all?

2.    Is he angry that he did not get a chance to show to people of Delhi that he  acted on another of his ministers?

3.  Does that mean that every action against his own people will be taken by  Kejriwal himself?

4.     Does it not mean that in a sense CBI starts to report to him?

5.  Does it not mean that Kejriwal is contradicting his own statement that investigating agencies should be autonomous?

In this case, he made accusations against Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, attributing CBI raids to search for files on Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA), which the senior BJP leader headed for decades. It is no secret that after he became chief minister this year, Kejriwal has been very keen to pursue the DDCA case on the basis of accusations of wrongdoing made by two former Test cricketers from Delhi and some other related functionaries. Most information available is already with Kejriwal and yet, no one is sure of the merit of accusations against DDCA nor has any evidence cropped up against Jaitley but that’s how Kejriwal functions. Make big bang charges against the high and mighty, hit the headlines and let it sink in public perception through corner talks at various levels. That is what he did in 2014 general elections when he stood against Modi. He was sure he will lose but he surely latched on the publicity of Modi. He just tried to be with a big shark fish and gathered small bits of food which fell down from the shark’s mouth.

In this case also, he didn’t elaborate what possibly could be the case against Jaitley other than saying CBI’s real motive was to find DDCA files.

In May 2015, Kejriwal had accused the then Delhi acting chief secretary Shakuntala Gamlin, a senior woman IAS officer, of lobbying for private electricity companies, misconduct and insinuating corruption. But with passage of time, once she relinquished the post of chief secretary, nobody heard of any follow up action against her.

Kejriwal’s accusation against Jaitley or attaching the CBI raids with a particular motive has one major flaw. The CBI couldn’t have found the DDCA file even if such file existed as in his own words no file stays in his office for more than 10-15 days!!! Judged against that claim, Kejriwal's barrage of charge against the CBI and the Union finance minister raises more questions than Its surprising that the chief minister himself stands for an officer in his government against whom CBI conducted raids only hours ago. This is particularly surprising when Kejriwal is keen to bring a law which can arrest Prime Minister without anybody’s consent!!! Is Kejriwal overreacting and putting his own reputation in the line just as he did during the arrest of his former law minister Jitender Singh Tomar by Delhi Police in the fake degree case? Or is he fearing that the searches might lead to something else, which could trouble him in future?

The case is so sensitive that without having a concrete ad substantial lead, the CBI won’t lay their hands on the principal secretary to the Delhi chief minister and conduct raids at his office in the chief minister’s. No government would want to risk it, that too when Parliament session is on. Hence there is a possibility that Kejriwal is shouting due to fear of something coming out which is uncomfortable for him.

Now that the raids have happened, all connected parties, either the CBI and the Modi government or Kejriwal and AAP will have cow dung on their face and no ground to stand as more details would emerge. Common sense says that CBI must have done its homework well, otherwise it will have to lot of explaining to its political fraternity. If the agency failed to do so, it should prepare itself to face the wrath of the courts and also to take further beating of its image in public perception and would make a clear image of a caged parrot. As of now, there is simply too much at stake for the “premier” investigative agency. Perhaps Kejriwal and his colleagues should have shown some patience and waited for contradicting evidence to surface before blazing all guns against the CBI and Modi-led government at the Centre.

It is not at all surprising that the Kejriwal defended his use of un-parliamentary language. He is a habitual offender in that sense. The language only suggests that Kejriwal has transformed himself into a hardcore politician who is now aware how to swing an adversarial situation into a rhetorical advantage.

Despite the political acumen that the Delhi chief minister gathered in such a short spell of time, there is something he should put his thoughts to. Many of those whom he entrusted, Jitendra Singh Tomar, Somnath Bharti, Rakhi Birla - all have found themselves in the wrong side of the law. This time, the chief minister has again vouched for another of his trusted lieutenants to the extent that he declared a virtual war against the Prime Minister's Office. One can only hope that Rajendra Kumar’s name does not end up clubbed with the names just mentioned. Finally, when a person or a party stands on ideology of being un-corruptible and being clean, the party has to go through such “agnipariksha”. Kejriwal could have hit a political sixer had he given a statement to support CBI action and was ready to provide any help to CBI to unearth any wrong doings. Instead he chose to oppose which has led people to speculate “Is there something to hide Mr. Kejriwal?”

National Herald, Indira Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi

As Sonia Gandhi said “I am Indiraji’s bahu and I’m scared of no one,” in reaction to Delhi high court summons to her and Rahul Gandhi, it is important to read between the words and lines.

What was the necessity to make a POLITICAL STATEMENT when the court case is not at all political in nature?

Well, that has been the strategy of none other than Indira Gandhi when she was implicated in 1977-1980 in many criminal cases by then Janata Party government. While, the then PM Morarji Desai knew that the long legal battle could have taken away all the energy from a 60 year old lady and that Indira Gandhi was contemplating to even retire from public life, Chaudhari Charan Singh did a political suicide. He arrested Indira Gandhi, caused hardships to her and suddenly the entire public sentiment turned against the government and for Indira Gandhi. She won the 1980 elections comprehensively. Sonia Gandhi remembers this and is HOPING and WAITING for Narendra Modi government to repeat the same mistakes committed by then Janata government. Therefore, it is no surprise on part of Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi having called this court case as a political vendetta. Both of them and the entire congress party have still not come to terms that they have lost the election in 2014. They still continue to live in 20^th Century which belongs to very few good works of Congress and mostly bad politics of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and then Rajiv Gandhi. Therefore, whenever they face a challenging situation, they can’t stop themselves from invoking Nehru, Gandhi’s. Rahul Gandhi is content in saying “meri dadi ko mara, mere papa ko mara”, somehow trying to pull out political mileage, which doesn’t stop even after a quarter of a century has passed after these sad incidents.

Sonia Gandhi has been the longest serving Congress president. She portrays herself to be an ideal “BAHU”, making her in-laws her shield and her family her sword. She expects each Congress member to worship her, her family, her in-laws and keeps on talking about the past, past, past, past….

This very attitude has prompted the culture of flaunting political connections by the smallest gully-neta when confronted by a smallest traffic police for smallest thing such as breaking the traffic signal. And this culture is hurting the nation the most today.

This attitude of Congress of publicly invoking family legacy when faced with a legal case raises the question: are legal summons an insult or disrespect to the grandeur of Sonia Gandhi’s family? A “how-dare-the court-summon-us” attitude is not particularly democratic. The attitude shows how Sonia and family wants themselves to be treated as privileged, above the law; sometimes even like kings and queens.

But this BAHU politics won’t work in the face of allegations of financial irregularities and malpractices. Sonia may try to compare herself with post 1977 Indira who dared the Janata government to arrest her and eventually used her small period of imprisonment to emerge as a martyred leader. There is hardly any comparison between 1977 and 2015. Most OTHER politicians such as Narendra Modi, Nitish Kumar, Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata, Devendra Fadnavis, etc… unlike Sonia and Rahul, pride themselves on their humble beginnings.

Subramanian Swamy’s case is not a political challenge requiring street fights and maximum histrionics. Instead, the sycophants around Sonia Gandhi should advise her and Rahul Gandhi to give a point-by-point rebuttal to the charges in court. The legal maze of the National Herald case can hardly be settled through invoking the political era of Indira Gandhi.

The NDA government on other hand is happy to see the Sonia-Rahul duo and Congress squirm under the spotlights provided by the National Herald scandal, where the needle of wrongdoing clearly points to them. However, the government is also facing another challenge in Rajya Sabha over key legislative reforms, the goods and services tax (GST) being the most important among them.aught in a scandal?TI

Therefore, instead of giving in to the pressurization tactics, the government would be better advised to call the Congress' bluff. It should under no circumstances help the Congress wriggle out of the National Herald scandal by directly or indirectly pressuring the investigating or prosecuting agencies to go slow. That would be a real subversion of the rule of law.

The government should give the Congress a simple and strong message to try their best to disrupt the development of the country and that the government is prepared to sacrifice the GST, and should launch a nationwide propaganda campaign to tell the world that the Congress is derailing Indian growth story to protect one family.

The rapid shift in the Congress stand from disruptions over the Herald case to Vyapam and Lalit Modi shows that the party is exposed. The NDA should thus drive home the advantage and allow the Congress to continue with its disruptions and tell the world day in day out that this is about deflecting attention from the Gandhi family's real estate blunder, not Vyapam, which is anyway being investigated by the CBI, and the courts are already monitoring it closely.

The chances are that Congress will give up first.

No. 1, the focus continues to remain on the Gandhi family's Herald blunder.

No. 2, disruptions continue to be seen by the public as evidence that Congress and the Gandhi family is indeed hiding something.

No. 3, Congress allies have already begun to wonder whether they have to be dragged along with Congress antics just to protect the Gandhi family or should they pay the price for just being their ally.

No. 4, the GST won’t be a big loss in the short term as there will only be problems and challenges in the first two years of implementation, causing discomfort in the trading community and mild hike in inflation. GST also will cause a reduction in state autonomy on finances once implemented. It will be impossible for states to give up GST once they are in. Sacrificing GST is therefore no big deal in the short term.

There are chances the non-Congress parties will be tired of the Congress' antics which, they know, is about saving the family. Any prolonged disruption can only benefit the BJP. With state elections due again in a few months' time, the regional parties cannot but be worried about playing the Congress game.

The government should, in the meanwhile, prepare to run the reform programme through simple budgetary actions such as merging excise and service tax and the other financial actions which can be simplified and made to look like reforms.

Legislation may suffer, but not for long. If the government is willing to withstand this winter of discontent, the Congress will return to the discussion table with its tail between the legs. Meanwhile, it should persistently try to divide the opposition and get them to discuss the Congress' tactics.

It is ridiculous to think and assume that the PMO has pushed the National Herald case against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi to pressurize the party to support the GST Bill. It would be too innocent to think that Modi won’t be aware of the uproar by Congress members in Parliament following the summons. He in fact would have preferred the case not coming up now as it was always clear the Congress was looking for excuses to stall the parliament functioning. While Congress sensibly argued against the 1% inter-state levy in the GST Bill, they put forth other unreasonable demands like putting an 18% ceiling on the GST tax rate in the Bill itself. That was the best way of ensuring the GST Bill never went through.

Even as Modi showed huge amount of maturity and calmness during answering the debates on both constitution and intolerance, on the day of the meeting, Rahul was sarcastic to mention to the TV channels that government had called upon Congress leaders under pressure, and that the party’s strategy was not of consultation. He further continued his rhetoric when he said that the BJP was out to hurt the interests of farmers with the Land Bill and it was the Congress party that had ensured the Bill never went through even if country needs land for industrialization and urbanization, or that farmers would be better off if they were going to get 4 times the value of their property under the BJP’s Bill, unlike the land acquisition during Congress and other regimes at throwaway prices. And then, amazingly, Rahul Gandhi went on to say that the labour reforms proposed by the BJP were going to hurt labour and the Congress would do its best to stop them. Even if everyone knows the pro-labour policy of the last 68 years has ensured poor jobs growth and so-called anti-labour reforms would do more to generate jobs; Rahul thought he would be able to convince people of this country of the same rhetoric that failed in the elections 18 months ago.

The National Herald case first came up in 2013, when the Congress party was in power, so there was no question of the BJP leadership trying to come up with it to put pressure on the party to pass the GST Bill, or any other legislation for that matter. The allegations, first made by Niti Central, were straight-forward – that Congress leaders like Sonia and Rahul Gandhi had conspired to take over the National Herald, using the Congress party’s money, and that this was done with an eye to the property owned by the newspaper. Whether the allegations hold good or not, is for the courts to decide, and that is where the matter is. If all charges against politicians are to be settled out of court; which is what the Congress party’s strategy seems to be amounting to, it is a sad day for Indian democracy.

The control of the country's longest-serving party by one family has done the nation enormous damage and distorted all politics. TIME TO END IT and MAKE CONGRESS A GANDHI MUKT PARTY. The day, majority of Congress party members gather courage to voice this known fact, better days will begin for Congress party.

Intolerance, Sanjiv Bhatt and NGOs

Riots wherever happened are not only unfortunate but should be condemned in the worst possible words. For past over 13 years Mr. Narendra Modi has been accused of being a silent spectator of 2002 riots. However, these accusations were not based on facts. This was proven last month when Supreme Court dismissed Mr. Sanjiv Bhatt's petition against Mr. Modi.

Not only SC did reject his petition out rightly but also passed serious strictures against him such as:

1.     Liar

2.     Did not come with clean hands

3.     Trying to influence witnesses

4.     Leaking information to NGOs

The complete verdict can be found on http://indiankanoon.org/doc/90920551/. Did the electronic media take cognizance of this very very important news? Yes, for a change!!! Watch it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BIY9ExpFNQ. There were emails exchanged between Sanjiv Bhatt and Congress Leader Shakti Singh Gohil in which Sanjiv Bhatt asks him for Blackberry phone!!! The Congress party bribes an IPS officer? Sanjiv Bhatt’s wife fought elections on Congress ticket!!! The link between Congress party and Sanjiv Bhatt who has been declared a liar by H’ble SC has been clearly exposed. In the email exchange Sanjiv Bhatt also writes that a pressure group be created with help of NGOs!!! This is what the congress party is. Congress party accepted on NewsHour that they had links with Sanjiv Bhatt, they are now disowning him (use and throw, similar to Sitaram Kesari, Narsimha Rao, etc…) Should the people of India who have decided to make India a Congress Free Country wait for any longer?

It is now completely clear that Mr. Narendra Modi had not given any instructions to Sanjiv Bhatt to stop actions against rioters and the Gujarat 2002 riots were a clear reaction of Godhra. A large number (probably the highest in any riot) of Hindus have died in police firing also is a clear evidence that the government has tried its best to control the situation. Further the Gujarat government also asked help from Rajasthan, Maharashtra and MP all Congress ruled states. Nobody offered any help to Gujarat government. This is on record and true.

What has this to do with NGOs? All the while since 2002 a large number of NGOs were involved in defaming Gujarat and India. Most NGOs are funded by none other than American funding agencies. These funding agencies and further the NGOs are the babies of US government and work very similarly to the credit rating agencies such as Moody’s, Fitch, S&P, etc… This is a very large political nexus which most countries don’t understand. Further these NGOs are involved in anti-national activities. They protest against big ticket projects which will take India forward by several decades. They fund Indian NGOs who work against government whom they don’t like. Thus these NGOs have their own preferences of the governments. And Modi government is not their choice. Further these NGOs don’t provide any statement of accounts to the Indian government. All this was not only tolerated by accepted by none other than Congress. Congress was hand in glove in various wrong economic and agricultural decisions by their government. Mr. Narendra Modi has recognized this.

India has toughened rules governing charities, raising concern in WASHINGTON, and this year the government cancelled the registration of nearly 9,000 groups for failing to declare details of overseas donations.

Modi's government has accused foreign charities of trying to hamper industrial projects on social and environmental grounds, and he has criticized what he called "five-star activists."

Under a proposed law, foreign-funded NGOs face more regulatory hurdles and must agree their work will not be "detrimental to the national interest."

B.K. Prasad, the official overseeing the home ministry's new approach, told Reuters, the government had no intention of forcing NGOs to close.

But we have every right to streamline their work," he said. "This attititude that nobody can question influential donors must be put to an end."

US Ambassador Richard Verma has said the United States was in dialogue with India on the matter and he WARNED that the tougher approach may have a "CHILLING EFFECT" on civil society and democratic traditions.

AND WE ALL ARE SEEING WHAT IS THE CHILLING EFFECT.

One such NGO which has its funds dried up is the FORD foundation. And one of the trustee of this NGO is none other than our own Shri Narayan Murthy. When nothing works for Murthy, he resorts to talk about intolerance. I have lost all the respect I had for this person all these years.

NOW ARE WE CLEAR ON WHO AND HOW AND WHY THE PROTESTS AGAINST INTOLERANCE WERE ORGANIZED?

Coming back to the Sanjiv Bhatt’s case, it has been proven that he was only a puppet acting on behalf of Congress. The vital concern is that the congress party is deliberately polarizing the atmosphere which may culminate in a riot like situation, only to further blame Modi government of intolerance!!! This is the true face of Congress Party of which claims to be a grand old party led by Mahatma Gandhi!!

The Congress government has nothing to say against the Modi government on any development issue. They cannot fight politically against Modi government. Thus they resort to such activities.

GST and Land acquisition bills are stalled by Congress

Parliament is not allowed to function and just shout and howl.

With this blog, I am appealing to Congress party leadership to apologize to the people of Gujarat and India for falsely campaigning and using, tutoring a police officer against a section of people of India. Let the parliament function and crucial bills be passed for sake of this country. Don’t mislead people. They are wiser than you think Rahul Gandhi is.

Moody’s, Writers, Awards, Amnesia, Hallucination etc…..

Last week Moody’s cautioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he risked losing the domestic and global credibility if BJP controversialists were not reined in.

The moment this agency issued the caution, there was a huge hullabaloo. People behind the hullabaloo conveniently forgot that the very agency also said, “Key economic reforms could deliver greater potential GDP, as they would improve India’s productive capacity. These include the land acquisition bill, a national goods and service tax, and revamped labour laws. They are unlikely to pass through Parliament in 2015, but there is an even chance of success in 2016,” Moody’s also said that “Modi government has cleared stalled projects worth 60B$” which are the legacy of Congress government.

Although there is no reason to believe any positive or negative reports of any credit rating agency. They are just one of the way to control governments which are not the natural ally of the US. The world knows that they are conveniently manipulated to suit to USA position and condition which prevail at that time. People and my friends may not “accept” what I say, I request them to “tolerate” me.

Anyway, taking a clue from the report the Congress party arranged a march on 3^rd November.

The march included members of congress party, MPs, and a large number of security personnel. In fact, the number of security personnel almost outnumbered the march members.

And why not? This is for the first time in the history of Indian politics where the President, Vice President, party office bearers and members of a grand old party, protested against their own chief ministers!!! One from the ruling Karnataka and 2^nd the former CM from Maharashtra. Hence they needed the protection from their own party people.

Oops…People reading this blog will react by saying “Are you out of your mind? The protest march was against the growing intolerance, not present or former Congress governments”.

The counter question, forget many, I will ask is why not consider this as march against Congress governments? After all the law and order situation is the responsibility of state government!!! Does the Centre have any role to play in maintaining day to day law and order situation in each state? Is the Congress party not aware of this simple fact? Therefore, I say, the protest march was against Congress state governments not the Centre.

The protests have come too little, too late. Had these protests happened immediately after Shri Dabholkar’s and Kalburgi’s murder, the protests and march could have had some value. The march could have had some value had they arranged the same when Nirbhaya died. The march could have had immense value had it happened immediately after the highly condemnable Dadri incident. All these incidents happened when either Congress party or Samajwadi Party was in power!!! Not only they were in power, they were solely responsible to investigate the murders and put the culprits behind the bars. Both Dabholkar’s and Kalburgi’s murderers are still at large. When the congress party government is unable to fulfil this basic responsibility, I have no option but to say that the march is against their own governments. Thousands of Sikhs were butchered and the then Congress Prime Minister shamelessly said “When a tree falls, the earth is bound to shake”. Why did the march not happen then?

There are several such incidents much more heinous in nature in the history of this country when such kind of march did not happen.

There would be innumerable such questions which can be asked and each time the answer would be that as a common man, I have no fear of expressing my views publicly. I have voted for Modi and I have every right to ask him questions on the promises he made during his campaign. Even the Congress party has the same right. They could do so by asking pinching questions in the Parliament. But what have they done? They obstruct the functioning of Parliament; they don’t allow passage of bills which were initiated by their own government in the past. This shows that this party does not want the Modi government to function; this party does not want India to develop. Their only agenda is opposing this government because they are in opposition.

Let us come back to the liberals, seculars and activists. There is an argument from these so called liberals that the freedom of expression is being suppressed. 

My simple question is, How?

Few days back, Anupam Kher asked Arnab Goswamy on the news hour, whether he has received any call from the ministry of information and broadcasting, or the PMO or even a hint from any politician to refrain from showing certain subjects on the channel. The answer was a clear no. The media being so expressive these days, would give a tough fight against any of these censorship attempts. Since there is no report or show on prime time of any channel, there is every reason to believe that no such "threats" have been issued.

Lets talk what is the condition of common man.

Can the film makers make films on the subjects they chose? The answer is yes.

Does the government tell any film maker to not make films on certain subjects? The answer is no.

Has any political party or RSS taken away the freedom of any artist to return the award? A loud no. no….

Has the BJP or prime minister send police to any citizen’s house to ask why he criticized him or the government? At least police have not come to my house even when I have criticized several ministers, even @narendramodi or @dev_fadnavis on twitter or facebook. A big positive is when I have written to the @pmoindia on 2 occasions, I have seen that a change happened immediately within a day. That clearly means that you can definitely write to the highest authority in this country and expect an action within a shortest possible time.

Can people watch movies or even porn whenever they want? A big yes.

Can people buy anything and everything they want, depending on their affordability of course; anywhere in this country? Again yes.

Can you travel anywhere in this country without any fear from a certain community? Yes. I have and am travelling frequently to most parts of this country except the NE and have never felt insecure even at 3am at night.

Can you eat whatever you want? Pizza’s burgers, any continental food, drink the finest wines, or even a desi tharra if you prefer? Absolutely yes.

Can you have sex with your wife or your girlfriend with mutual consent. This question is highly private but at least for me, the answer is yes. No government or Modi has told me either to have or not have sex.

Can you read any book I want or like? Yes.

Can you celebrate your festival the way you like? Burst crackers, celebrate Eid, buy clothes, sweets, etc… A big big yes.

Further, It would be interesting to check a many more similar questions.

The only controversy is on eating beef. The controversy is being created as if, each and every person who is protesting against the law, eats beef in breakfast, lunch and dinner on a daily basis; and there is absolutely nothing left in the world to eat apart from beef and people are starving to death without eating beef!! How many of the awardees themselves eat beef? The prime question I have in my mind is “Why not accept a religious sentiment of a certain community by not eating beef?” Why not come forward and say “We respect your religious sentiments. We won’t kill a cow?" Why not have some “tolerance” there?

I was watching the debate on newshour on @timesnow 2 weeks back. The panelist included a lady called Maya Krishna Rao. A very basic question popped up. “Why the awards weren’t returned when innumerable incidents happened during in the past?” The answer was worth listening. She said “I decide when to take the award and when to return. Nobody can question my liberty. I choose how and when to react to whom”. When she has this basic fundamental right of returning the award, how on earth she could say her fundamental right has been curtailed. She is an eminent theatre personality and writes, directs and acts in plays for which she received a Sahitya Academy Award in 2010. The very same year Deganga riots happened right under UPA rule from whom she took the award. Did she not have the freedom to return the award then?

Several incidents which happened the UPA rule, Congress ruled states in past 10 years, Taslima Nasreen's book was banned, James Laine book was banned inspite of Supreme Court lifting the ban, A cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was arrested on sedition charges during Prithviraj Chavan rule, Dalits were killed in Khairlanji again during Congress rule. The list can be gigantic. A ban on a marathi play "Me Nathuram Godsay Boltoy" is still there by NCP leadership. This play is not allowed at the famous Gadkari Rangayatan in Thane!!! Where was the conscience of the writers then? Again this lady replies, “It’s my convenience. I choose my time”. This means she even has the freedom of choosing the time of returning the award. How can she claim her fundamental right has been violated?.

Further she asks a counter question involvement of Modi in 2002 riots. My question is why the award wapsi programme was not organized in 2002 itself?

Out comes the truth, Mr. Modi is ruling now who is a highly communal figure. Let’s recall, that even the H’ble Supreme Court has discharged all cases and not a single evidence has been found against him. Even the case of Sanjiv Bhatt, the police officer during the 2002 riots has been proven to be lying in Supreme Court in a recent judgement.

The truth still prevails. And the truth is a lot of people in this country cannot tolerate a non-Congress government. People in Congress party cannot tolerate the progress and development which is likely to happen by passage of the land bill, GST bill and several other bills which are aimed to take this country forward.

People who are returning the awards are not only insulting the people of this country due to whom they have got this award but also the hard work of co-artists. Award returnees conveniently have forgotten the contribution of the jury members, one of them could even be an ideologue of BJP? The award wapsi is nothing but a farce on which people of this country and the world is laughing.

I conclude by saying that the award returnees are suffering from selective amnesia. They forget to return their awards for incidents happened during Congress rule. They return their awards for the same incidents during BJP rule as a mark of protest against intolerance by BJP. They could even be hallucinating. A person suffering from hallucination sees nonexistent things. And in India, the so called intolerance described by the seculars, liberals, writers, is nonexistent. If at all intolerance exists, it is the intolerance in the minds of the writers and activists who cannot “tolerate” a non-Congress government in India.

Till this award wapsi farce continues there is no threat to Modi government as people forget the prime issue; DELIVERIES OF PROMISES. The sooner the Congress party realizes this, better is the chance of revival of the grand old party. Otherwise its time up