Assault on India's Democracy by UPA

03-24-2006, 03:45 AM

<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/b_cowboy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='b_cowboy.gif' /> 2 down, many more to go

03-24-2006, 04:28 AM

QUOTE(Mudy @ Mar 23 2006, 05:56 PM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEWhy not resign on 22nd? Why shut Parliament?Â [/url]
The fear that the President might have sent the complaint against Sonia to the Election Commission before the government sent the ordinance to him? Or the fear that the President might not sign the ordinance forthwith and sit on it till the pending cases like Jayaâs, including Soniaâs, are decided? The last minute resignation conceals the obviousÂ <!--emo& Big Grin

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

[right][snapback]48991[/snapback][/right]
</div>
Mudy, Just speculating, but I think there's something to be said about President Kalam here. I'm sure if we had say people like Buta or Arjun Singh in President's seat these people would have treated constitution and parliamentary procedures like some cheap toilet paper?

03-24-2006, 04:31 AM

QUOTE(Mudy @ Mar 23 2006, 03:00 PM)Congress
6)Union Minister of State for Mines T Subbarami Reddy, who is Chairperson of Tirupati Tirumala DevasthanamÂ
7)Karan Singh, who is heading the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.
[right][snapback]48980[/snapback][/right]

Karan Singh has resigned. So has Gurudas Kamath from Maharashtra.

So what's the current Cong strength in LS? Seems like Cong is ready for mid-term polls but their commie allies aren't ready to oblige yet.

03-24-2006, 05:07 AM

Commies already lost 3 members 2 months back on bribe scam. In this case they will lose 8.

Whole situation will trigger unsettle environment which will invite mid-term poll.

I think without official power Sonia and coterie will try other stupidity.
Now Sonia can meet foreign dignitary only as President of Congress. She will lose lot of her perks.
Now she can't announce schemes or other stunts she was doing being UPA Chairman. She can't use official planes/helicopters etc. Now Congress party had to support her.
Big change in status.
Congress will try everything to bring back Queen.

Any more scandal and they are gone.
Congress is very vindictive party and they are paying price. Look how Bhardwaj, Arjun Singh and Ahmed Patel are behaving, they will sink Congress boat.

Navin Chawala episode is still opne and submarine deal also stinks. Lets see how long they can last.
Newspapers opinions are already saying anti-congress wave.

Positive outcome, now in place MP or MLA holding other offices, other people will get chance. More job opportunity for family and friends. <!--emo& Big Grin

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

03-24-2006, 05:30 AM

QUOTEDid law minister give bad advice? 
New Delhi, March 23: Who advised the Congress government to adjourn Parliament sine die and plan to move an ordinance redefining offices of profit? Congress fingers are now pointing at Union law minister H.R. Bharadwaj, who is now informally recognised by the party as 10 Janpathâs Man Friday spearheading major âoperationsâ involving intricacies of law.

There was a marked difference otherwise between the responses of the Congress Party and its ministers on Wednesday when the news broke that Parliament was going to be adjourned sine die. Congress Party managers were forthcoming in their views from early morning, informing reporters that an ordinance was also in the pipeline and would be issued on Friday after it had been approved by the Union Cabinet.

Senior ministers, however, were more guarded in their response, and it was only after the adjournment of Parliament that they began to speak about the proposed ordinance later in the evening. Significantly, there was not a word on this issue throughout the day from the Prime Ministerâs Office or the Prime Minister himself.

Mr Bharadwaj was present at the meetings to finalise strategy. These were also attended by defence minister Pranab Mukherjee, home minister Shivraj Patil, science and technology minister Kapil Sibal, parliamentary affairs minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi and minister of state Suresh Pachauri. Congress leaders involved in the deliberations included Mr Ahmed Patel.

Sources said that the entire plan could not have been implemented and executed without the full knowledge of Mrs Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. âNothing happens in the party or the government without Mrs Sonia Gandhi being informed,â the sources pointed out.

Party managers spent Thursday trying to convince reporters that Mrs Sonia Gandhi had no idea about the ordinance, and did not approve of it.
The sources said that this was impossible, pointing out that even the amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code following the verdict in the Jessica Lall case had been approved by the Cabinet only after a letter was written by the party president to Mr Shivraj Patil.

âTo say that she did not know is unbelievable even for us in the Congress,â the sources said. The impression among party members not frequently seen at 10 Janpath is that the entire issue was mishandled by immature advisers. âIt was totally unnecessary to adjourn Parliament, and having done so it was totally unnecessary for her to resign in panic,â the sources pointed out.

Mr Bharadwaj, who is personally credited with the operation leading to the defreezing of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchiâs London bank accounts, is perceived as being very close to Mrs Sonia Gandhi. He makes no secret of his loyalty and has been renominated for a fifth time to the Rajya Sabha.

His success, sources said, lies in his ability to stay close to the powers within the Congress at any particular given point in time. The sources added that Mr Bharadwaj âis very good at judging which way the wind is blowing, and turns easily to stand in the right direction.â

Here Bharadwaj is showing his loyalty towards individual not to country and they call it "credit", and gloating how he helped Sonia's Italian friend.
Role of Mamohan is as usual spineless or dog with tail between legs.
Congress managers as usual tried to twist every law, facts and as usual thought that they will get away with this.

03-24-2006, 05:32 AM

The CPI(M), heading the list with 10 of its MPs holding offices of profit
Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, who is also the chairman of the Santiniketan Sriniketan Development Board
Nilotpal Basu
Muhammed Salim
Hannan Mollah,
Lakshman Seth
Amitava Nandy
Sudhanshu Sil
Taritbaron Topdar
Banshugopal Chowdhury
Sujan Chakaraborty

03-24-2006, 08:04 AM

I dare anybody on this forum to find more chaploosi packed into one article..

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/artic...461774.cms

03-24-2006, 08:05 AM

This picture doesnt count.

<img src='http://www.outlookindia.com/images/photoessays/sonia_supporter_suicide_threat_040518.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

03-24-2006, 08:55 AM

In the following news story, this POS says she would
contest again from the Rae Bareilly constituency. Many
people seem to have overlooked this item believing
we are done with her. She should be presented with
only two options: prison for life or deportation.

Source: http://us.rediff.com/news/2006/mar/23profit4.htm

'Hurt' Sonia quits as MP, chairperson of NAC

March 23, 2006 15:43 IST
Last Updated: March 23, 2006 20:44 IST

Taking the wind out of the Opposition's sails, Congress president Sonia Gandhi today announced her resignation from the Lok Sabha and as chairperson of the National Advisory Council, an office that threatened to cost her seat in Parliament.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has accepted Sonia resignation from the post of Chairperson of the National Advisory Council.

Shortly after making this announcement, Gandhi drove to Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee's residence and submitted her resignation. Chatterjee has accepted it with immediate effect.

As the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and Samajwadi Party mounted a major political campaign against Gandhi, the 59-year-old MP sprang a surprise that could take away the sting from the Opposition's attack that the government's move for an Ordinance to redefine office of profit was aimed at saving her from 'a certain disqualification' as MP.

The resignation came on day the BJP petitioned President A P J Abdul Kalam seeking her disqualification from the Lok Sabha on the ground she held an office of profit as chairperson of the NAC. The Telugu Desam Party had already petitioned the President last week in this regard.

Significantly, Chief Election Commissioner B B Tandon said today that the law was the same for everybody and he would consider the petition against Gandhi when it was referred by the President.

In a statement to announce her resignation, Sonia Gandhi said, 'In the last few days some Opposition parties are trying to create an impression that the Congress and the United Progressive Alliance are using Parliament and the government only to protect me. This has hurt me very much.'

'I have stated earlier also that I am in politics and public life not for my selfish ends,' she said. 'I have taken a pledge to serve the people of the country and to protect secular ideals. So, in keeping with my public life and political principles and according to my own belief, I resign as member of the Lok Sabha and chairperson of National Advisory Council. I have full faith that brothers and sisters of Rae Bareilly and the whole nation will understand this feeling of mine.'

Gandhi came out with the brief statement after consultations with top leaders including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

She said she would contest again from the same constituency.

With overnight indications that the government was keen on bringing an Ordinance after getting the Parliament adjourned sine die, the Union Cabinet met today but the issue did not come up, apparently because of Gandhi's reservations over including NAC in the list of office of profit sought to be exempted.

While the Congressmen were keen that the NAC should be also covered by the amendment to the Members of Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Act, Sonia was firm that she should not be seen as being benefited by any legal device.

"I have done this because this is the right thing to do," Gandhi told reporters .

This is her second act of giving up a politically important position, the first being her refusal to take up the prime ministership soon after the Congress-led UPA was voted to power in May 2004.

With Gandhi's resignation, interest will now centre around the strategy to be adopted by similarly-placed persons.

Petitions have been filed for the disqualification of Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee (Chairman of Sriniketan-Santinikatan Development Authority), Union Minister T Subbirami Reddy (Chairman, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams), senior Congress leader Karan Singh (ICCR), nominated Rajya Sabha member Kapila Vatsyayan and V K Malhotra (former president of the All India Council of Sports).

The Speaker had even kept away from the House yesterday, saying he did it as a matter of propriety after some members had raked up issues against him.

While Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan was disqualified last week on the ground that she held an office of profit by being chairperson of the UP Film Development Council, the Election Commission has already sent a notice to her party colleague Amar Singh, Rajya Sabha MP and chairperson of the UP Industrial Development Council, on a similar petition against him.

Today the SP turned down his offer to resign and attacked the Centre over the Ordinance issue.

In all about 62 MPs are said to be in various posts, most of them from the Left in West Bengal, which Trinamul Congress leader Mamta Banerjee has sought to exploit politically ahead of the assembly polls in the state.

03-24-2006, 09:03 AM

Congress will try to change law and will back doing same illegal activities. But I hope by now middle class of India is done with her.
In general common man don't believe her new drama.

QUOTEI dare anybody on this forum to find more chaploosi packed into one article..

They can't beat HT article. They had made her Goddess Italia. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' />

03-24-2006, 09:15 AM

Indira to Sonia 
Soli J. Sorabjee
QUOTERegrettably the root cause of this outrageous behaviour is hero worship which is endemic in our country, where personality cult flourishes. Dr B.R. Ambedkar perceptively pointed out in the Constituent Assembly that âin India, Bhakti or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitudeâ. He warned that âBhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorshipâ. 
We have failed to heed this warning. It was this passion for Bhakti in politics and hero worship of Indira Gandhi which led to the imposition of the spurious Emergency in June 1975. It was the same phenomenon which was responsible for amendment


Law is not an ass

03-24-2006, 09:17 AM

She's a POS.

03-24-2006, 09:24 AM

Gamble of a daughter-in-lawQUOTEDepending on how the Congress uses the weapon of her resignation, it could have the potential to stir a moribund Congress in Uttar Pradesh into action and enthuse its workers, though it is a UP-wallah who initiated the move against Bachchan, which backfired. But the Congress will have to go beyond the ususal drumbeating it generally resorts to at times like this to take advantage of Soniaâs latest step.

While middle-class India and the intelligentsia will view Sonia Gandhiâs resignation as a ploy to get out of a corner, things may be viewed differently by rural India, though it is simplistic to make these divides. Resignation, renunciation and reluctance have proved to be potent political tools in the past. The âaam admiâ may not go into the chronology of events or the law but respond more simply by saying, âShe gave up her post again.â She may regain the moral authority she had come to acquire when she declined the countryâs prime ministership in 2004.

03-24-2006, 10:49 AM

Best editorial
QUOTESacrifice on tap, Sonia style 

Sonia Gandhi clearly has a very poor opinion of the collective intelligence of Indians. The claim that her forced resignation from the Lok Sabha is an act of sacrifice is palpably bogus. But this would not prevent her megaphones to shout from the housetops that she has improved upon her earlier allegedly Buddha and Gandhi-like sacrifice of the prime ministerial `gaddiâ by now quitting her Rai Bareilly seat. Such low-level cunning cannot help canonize one in the hall of saints. Her decision to not become prime minister was rooted in her own peculiar situation.

Even if wasnât for her Italian origins, she realized that she lacked confidence and experience to head a difficult coalition of disparate elements. A proxy prime minister suited her rather well. He did all her dirty work, and got blamed for it, while she feigned ignorance, trying to occupy moral high ground. From Goa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Bofors, Quattrocchi, et al, Sonia proposed while Manmohan Singh most obligingly disposed. He was a willing tool in her hand because without her he would be a political cipher.

But the second act in the cheap theatricals is bound to be panned by the nation-wide audiences for the simple reason that it does not even symbolically entail any sacrifice whatsoever. Because she has not quit the Lok Sabha for good. She intends to soon come back to it by contesting the election from the Nehru-Gandhi pocket-borough in UP yet again.

So where the sacrifice? Indeed, her decision to resign her LS seat is a clear admission that she too had come under the mischief of the very law under which her party had earlier arranged to have Jaya Bachchan thrown out of Parliament. Having initiated the move against Jaya Bachchan, Sonia cannot complain that she was being targeted by the Opposition.

There could not be two separate laws one for an opposition MP, and another for the presiding deity of the ruling arrangement.Â <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /> Her resignation is an attempt to try and make some political capital out of a decision mandated by her own difficult situation. As the chairperson of the ruling frontâs National Advisory Council she had clearly come under the mischief of the law regarding an office of profit.

Not withstanding what Abhishek Singhvi and other megaphones of the Congress Party said on television, there is no denying that Sonia feared disqualification on the same ground which had led to the exit of Jaya Bachchan from the Rajya Sabha. The rent-a-crowd rallies outside 10 Janpath cannot hide her vulnerability on that score.

Her resignation, most likely to be followed by a quick re-election, could have been a clever strategy had it not been for the ham-handedness of her managers who forced an abrupt end to the budget session of parliament. Never before in the history of parliamentary democracy in this country had any government prorogued sine die both Houses in the midst of an ongoing session only for the purpose of promulgating an ordinance.

The unprecedented move on Thursday would in all probability have gone unchallenged had a newspaper not revealed the crude plot. The last day before the session was to adjourn for a month-long recess led to loud protests by the opposition. It was indeed scandalous that the government of gentleman prime minister should seek to shut out parliament in order only to amend an inconvenient law through an executive fiat.

Obviously, when a gentleman falls in the company of crooks he begins to behave like one. Otherwise, Manmohan Singh cannot explain Jharkhand, Bihar, Goa, Quattrocchi, etc, etc. But even by now familiar low standards of the Manmohan Singh Government, the decision to prorogue the parliament sine die was an assault on established democratic norms. The loud NDA protests were reinforced doubly when the Communists conveyed to the Government their opposition to an ordinance.

Instead, they pressed for a legislative measure to undo the mischief of the provision about the office of profit. Saving the LS Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, was not a Communist concern, especially given the internal divisions within the CPI(M) Politburo.

With the Communists vetoing the crude stratagem of an ordinance, was clear that the move to abandon parliament mid-way had misfired. The Government cannot have a convincing explanation for its unprecedented action. The resignation of Sonia Gandhi from the LS and other bodies was an afterthought, meant to salvage the situation after the Communist veto.

The sacrifice fiction was the invention of her sycophants who can now be relied upon to make her out to be a Buddha and a Gandhi rolled into one. The route to authoritarianism lies in deifying a mere mortal, especially one carrying an awesome baggage of enormous personal greed and ambition. But it is futile to hope that Congressmen will change their spots. They are, after all, well, Congressmen.

So expect more of staged acts of chest-beating and slogan-shouting outside 10 Janpath in the coming days. The clear victim is the Indian democracy which is never given a chance to protect itself against populist charlatans hell-bent on bending all norms and conventions only to perpetuate themselves in power.

Send in your comments on this article to samachar_editor@sify.com

03-24-2006, 08:10 PM

Disqualification Bill passed in J'khand AssemblyQUOTEAmidst hurling of chairs and overturning of tables by opposition UPA members, Jharkhand Assembly on Friday passed a controversial bill to protect four NDA MLAs from possible disqualification on the ground of their holding of offices of profit.
...............
Chief Minister Arjun Munda, however, claimed all the four MLAs, three belonging to BJP and one of JD(U), were 'protected' by a 1950 Act enacted when Bihar was undivided.

03-24-2006, 08:12 PM

Jayalalithaa lashes out at Left partiesQUOTEIn a statement, she said the left parties had always assumed for themselves the "lofty position of lecturing to others about probity and integrity in public life."

Sonia tried to make virtue out of necessity: JayaQUOTETerming Congress President Sonia Gandhi's resignation from the Lok Sabha and as Chairperson of National Advisory council as a "drama", AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa on Friday said the Congress president had only tried to make a "virtue out of a compelling necessity".

03-24-2006, 08:44 PM

Sonia effect: Vatsyayan quits Rajya Sabha 
Cultural czarina and Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) President Kapila Vatsayayan on Friday resigned from the Rajya Sabha in the wake of the "office of profit" controversy

03-24-2006, 08:45 PM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4838504.stm

This has a subtler spin. The spin is that Sonia was unaware of the ordinance thing and she had to clear it up. And she is 'mysterious' etc.. Even while dissing the sycophancy, a subtle spin is being put on for Sonia-ji the greatest..

03-24-2006, 09:47 PM

QUOTEStatement of Dr. Subramanian Swamy, Janata Party President and former Union Law Minister on March 24,2006 

Now that the fake sacrifice drama--II of Ms. Sonia Gandhi is over [it is fake since Ms. Gandhi would have had to resign her MP seat anyway and hence it is no sacrifice], it is time to realize that Ms. Gandhi cannot contest any Parliament election until she resigns from the Chairpersonship of five more offices of profit including that of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.

Ms. Gandhi's lack of sincere commitment to her Congress Party is also obvious since by resigning she has made it morally obligatory for the 35 plus Congress MPs also similiarly subject to disqualification from Parliament membership, to resign or alternatively make out that Ms. Gandhi has no party support. Ms. Gandhi as President of the Congress Party ought to have consulted the CWC, instead of her novice children, before rushing to the press.

Ms. Sonia Gandhi has a history of panic reactions in face of challenges to her. In March 1977, after the Janata Party was voted to power, Ms. Gandhi took her two then young children and rushed to the Italian Embassy to hide, thus abandoning her mother-in-law, the defeated Mrs.Indira Gandhi. Thereafter Prime Minister Morarji Desai had to intervene to pacify a distraught Indira and re-unite the family. In April 1999, after the NDA government was toppled by one vote in the Lok Sabha , Ms. Sonia Gandhi rushed to the President of India to stake a claim without a mandate from the coalition of parties that had brought the NDA down, and blandly declared that 272 MPs of the Lok Sabha supported her. She was apprehensive that someone else may become PM. The media-managed sacrificeâI of declining the PM's post in May 2004 as also a panic reaction after it became clear that she suffered a disqualification under the Citizenship Act.

It is better therefore Ms. Gandhi quits politics altogether now. A leader given to a fit of panic reactions is unfit to lead

03-24-2006, 09:52 PM

Now after whole drama, legally she is out of any government committee, PM should not disclose and national secrets to her otherwise this will disqualify PM also. Let see how spineless will perform. I think he will continue with his Friday meet. because for him Sonia is more important than India.

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