12-09-2004, 05:41 PM
CBI: Congress Bureau of Investigation!
(Feature, www.samachar.com 8th December 2004)
Source: www.samachar.com
Date: 8th December2004
It is a pity the lotus-eaters of the NDA did not pursue corruption cases against senior Congressmen when they were in power. <b>From that known briber-taker in the Bofors scam, who now sits pretty in his home in Italy certain that the compatriot, who now controls the UPA Government, </b>would have the tawdry investigations buried once for all, to the <b>Satish Sharmas and Sukh Rams and Buta Singhs, all can sleep in peace now that the natural party of corruption and criminality in public life is back in power in New Delhi. </b>
The Vajpayee Governmentâs <b>misplaced generosity </b>towards the corrupt and the criminals in the then main opposition party did not earn it any IOUs. On the contrary, the NDA leaders were criticised for being weak and vacillating on the question of rooting out political corruption.<b> That Congressmen as a tribe were brazen and ungrateful ought to have been clear to the NDA leaders soon after they found themselves voted out of power.</b> A virtual witch-hunt was begun to harass and embarrass senior BJP leaders and their allies once the Congress Party returned to power on the shoulders of the Communists and other smaller groups.
Take, for example, the inquiry ordered by the Urban Welfare Ministry into the allotment of land in the national capital to various organisations associated with the former ruling party. Garbled stories were fed to the hungry media as to how plum pieces of real estate costing tens of crores of rupees were virtually gifted away free to the BJP-friendly persons.
If the Congressmen had paused to ponder their action they would have realised that, at worst, the BJP leaders had only aped them in helping themselves to subsidised land. After all, in a city where huge chunks of some of the priciest land in the country had been allocated to the Nehru-Gandhi family memorial industry for free, and where even the two Communist parties boasted of multistoried office complexes built on scandalously cheap government land, the BJP and its various affiliates had reason to make up for the lost opportunity when they got into power.
It is remarkable that the BJP did not have an office of its own, its headquarters having been housed in a government bungalow while even the preachy CPI (M) boasted of a grand structure built on cheap government land. So if they allocated land to themselves it was only a case of evening out the score, though they could never get land abutting Rajpath, which was reserved for the Family exclusively.
But the Congress Party seemed hell-bent on vendetta so that it can at least tar the main opposition party with the same black brush with which it had long been tarred for its various acts of omission and commission. <b>The confrontationist approach was clear when it scrapped the Phukan Commission of inquiry into the Tehelka scam </b>only a few weeks before it was to submit its final report. This was done to accommodate the concerns of the people behind the portal who feared that their true selves might be opened for public scrutiny if Justice Phukan was allowed to proceed any further.
Instead, the CBI was ordered to go after those whom the controversial sting operators had trapped in their wicked web. Most dutifully, the <b>CBI has registered criminal cases against ten persons, including the former BJP President, Bangaru Laxman, and former Samta Party chief, Jaya Jaitley</b>. Laxman was caught on camera while a Tehelka operative forced Rs one lakh on him as part of their political agenda to destabilise the NDA Government.
Jaitley did not take any money, not even a single rupee, though like any other politician in her position when approached to intervene in a case where allegedly a wrong was done to the petitioner she promised to speak to the minister concerned since he belonged to her party. But the Tehelka script demanded that George Fernandes be embarrassed at all costs, so one of its operatives forced a few bundles of currency notes on a visitor and secretly filmed the whole operation.Thank god they did not offer wine and women to the political leaders though this was one of the means adopted by the self-proclaimed crusaders to trap their pre-determined targets.
A couple of days prior to the slapping of the cases against Laxman and Jaitley, another supposedly independent agency, the Securities and Appellate Tribunal (SAT), overturned a SEBI order banning Shankar Sharmaâs First Global from participating in the stock market operations. The timing of the order was significant. And suggested that regardless of the law the agencies like the CBI and SAT are far from independent, and only too willing to do their political mastersâ bidding. That way lies further descent into corruption and criminality. The gentleman Prime Minister seems unable or unwilling to stop the flagrant misuse of independent agencies for purely partisan political ends.
Send in your comments on this article to samachareditor@sify.com
(Feature, www.samachar.com 8th December 2004)
Source: www.samachar.com
Date: 8th December2004
It is a pity the lotus-eaters of the NDA did not pursue corruption cases against senior Congressmen when they were in power. <b>From that known briber-taker in the Bofors scam, who now sits pretty in his home in Italy certain that the compatriot, who now controls the UPA Government, </b>would have the tawdry investigations buried once for all, to the <b>Satish Sharmas and Sukh Rams and Buta Singhs, all can sleep in peace now that the natural party of corruption and criminality in public life is back in power in New Delhi. </b>
The Vajpayee Governmentâs <b>misplaced generosity </b>towards the corrupt and the criminals in the then main opposition party did not earn it any IOUs. On the contrary, the NDA leaders were criticised for being weak and vacillating on the question of rooting out political corruption.<b> That Congressmen as a tribe were brazen and ungrateful ought to have been clear to the NDA leaders soon after they found themselves voted out of power.</b> A virtual witch-hunt was begun to harass and embarrass senior BJP leaders and their allies once the Congress Party returned to power on the shoulders of the Communists and other smaller groups.
Take, for example, the inquiry ordered by the Urban Welfare Ministry into the allotment of land in the national capital to various organisations associated with the former ruling party. Garbled stories were fed to the hungry media as to how plum pieces of real estate costing tens of crores of rupees were virtually gifted away free to the BJP-friendly persons.
If the Congressmen had paused to ponder their action they would have realised that, at worst, the BJP leaders had only aped them in helping themselves to subsidised land. After all, in a city where huge chunks of some of the priciest land in the country had been allocated to the Nehru-Gandhi family memorial industry for free, and where even the two Communist parties boasted of multistoried office complexes built on scandalously cheap government land, the BJP and its various affiliates had reason to make up for the lost opportunity when they got into power.
It is remarkable that the BJP did not have an office of its own, its headquarters having been housed in a government bungalow while even the preachy CPI (M) boasted of a grand structure built on cheap government land. So if they allocated land to themselves it was only a case of evening out the score, though they could never get land abutting Rajpath, which was reserved for the Family exclusively.
But the Congress Party seemed hell-bent on vendetta so that it can at least tar the main opposition party with the same black brush with which it had long been tarred for its various acts of omission and commission. <b>The confrontationist approach was clear when it scrapped the Phukan Commission of inquiry into the Tehelka scam </b>only a few weeks before it was to submit its final report. This was done to accommodate the concerns of the people behind the portal who feared that their true selves might be opened for public scrutiny if Justice Phukan was allowed to proceed any further.
Instead, the CBI was ordered to go after those whom the controversial sting operators had trapped in their wicked web. Most dutifully, the <b>CBI has registered criminal cases against ten persons, including the former BJP President, Bangaru Laxman, and former Samta Party chief, Jaya Jaitley</b>. Laxman was caught on camera while a Tehelka operative forced Rs one lakh on him as part of their political agenda to destabilise the NDA Government.
Jaitley did not take any money, not even a single rupee, though like any other politician in her position when approached to intervene in a case where allegedly a wrong was done to the petitioner she promised to speak to the minister concerned since he belonged to her party. But the Tehelka script demanded that George Fernandes be embarrassed at all costs, so one of its operatives forced a few bundles of currency notes on a visitor and secretly filmed the whole operation.Thank god they did not offer wine and women to the political leaders though this was one of the means adopted by the self-proclaimed crusaders to trap their pre-determined targets.
A couple of days prior to the slapping of the cases against Laxman and Jaitley, another supposedly independent agency, the Securities and Appellate Tribunal (SAT), overturned a SEBI order banning Shankar Sharmaâs First Global from participating in the stock market operations. The timing of the order was significant. And suggested that regardless of the law the agencies like the CBI and SAT are far from independent, and only too willing to do their political mastersâ bidding. That way lies further descent into corruption and criminality. The gentleman Prime Minister seems unable or unwilling to stop the flagrant misuse of independent agencies for purely partisan political ends.
Send in your comments on this article to samachareditor@sify.com