by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Ravi Shankar Prasad
New Delhi : Amid attacks from the Congress over the Rs. 12,600-crore PNB scam, the BJP on Monday accused former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram of aiding jewellers Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi — main accused in the multi-crore bank fraud case — through an 80:20 gold import scheme.
The Bharatiya Janata Party BJP) also targeted Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and sought answers from him on the issue.
Talking to reporters here, BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that Chidambaram gave his “blessings and benefits under the 80:20 scheme” to seven private jewellers on May 16, 2014, the day the results of Lok Sabha polls were announced.
“These seven jewellers included Geetanjali and Star jewellers,” Prasad said.
He said the 80:20 gold import scheme was started in August 2013 under the UPA government and was repealed by the Narendra Modi government three months after it came to power.
Prasad said earlier only Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation and public sector undertakings had the right to import gold, but that was changed.
“There was round-tripping under the scheme,” he alleged.
The 80:20 scheme was brought for nominated banks/ agencies/ entities to “rationalise” import of gold in any form to tame the current account deficit.
Prasad said exit polls had predicted that the Congress would lose elections and Chidambaram would not have been Finance Minister after the results were out.
“It was expected of the then learned Finance Minister that he will follow constitutional norms (of not taking important decisions),” Prassad said.
“Chidambaram should say, Rahul Gandhi should say why benefits were passed on to seven private companies under 80:20 scheme on May 16. The nation wants to know,” he asked.
He said Chidambaram’s order was subsequently cleared by the Reserve Bank of India on May 21.
“Mr. Chidambaram, is it ‘jumla’ or corruption? We want that real picture of Chidambaram should come before people. Mr. Chidambaram, please reply is it jumla, blatant favouritism, malafide conduct or rampant corruption?” Prasad said.
He alleged that the Congress was trying to spread misinformation about and fear against the BJP among people.
“Congress should reply who were the people lobbying for Geetanjali and what was the cut?” he said.
Prasad also targeted former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the increase in stressed assets of banks under the UPA government.
He said that the total advance given by banks in 2008 was Rs 18.06 lakh crore which rose to Rs 52.15 lakh crore in March 2014.
Prasad said that stressed assets of banks were pegged at 36 per cent in March 2014 but these subsequently rose to 82 per cent.
“Several times the real picture was not allowed to come on bank records during the UPA rule. The economic structure of the country was shattered by the Congress,” he said.
The Minister stressed there had been no NPAs (non-performing assets) in the loans given under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
“Under the so-called economist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the entire banking system was completely sought to be derailed because of interventions, because of pressures, because of patronage,” Prasad said.
The Congress has been targeting the government, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the Rs 12,600-crore PNB bank fraud case and seeking answers from then over Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi being able to leave the country.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Amulya Ganguli,
Prima facie, it can seem that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been able to achieve its objective of ushering in a Congress-mukt (free) India in the northeast, especially in Tripura, by being in a position to come to power in at least two of the three states which went to the polls last month.
However, such a conclusion will be facile. The reason is that in Tripura, for instance, the BJP has succeeded in coopting virtually all the entire 30-plus per cent support base of the Congress. As a result, it can be said that the BJP in Tripura at present is really the Congress by another name.
True, there will be elements in the party who are ideologically close to the BJP, mostly as a result of the groundwork done by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in the state. But their numbers cannot be large considering that the BJP’s vote share in the last three elections hovered around one per cent while the Congressa¿s voting percentage was consistently above 30 per cent. It is difficult to believe, therefore, that the BJP’s jump from zero seats in the state assembly to 40-odd was the outcome of an entirely new party coming into existence.
It is not easy to pinpoint what is behind the wholesale transfer of the Congress base to the BJP. The BJP’s seemingly limitless resources have been mentioned in this context. But the main explanation apparently lies in the continuing popular belief in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of development.
Even if the expectations in this respect have not quite been fulfilled in other parts of the country, where the BJP has consequently suffered reverses, as in the Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh by-elections, the hope of the people in the northeast about employment-oriented growth has not been dimmed.
One reason why it hasn’t is the failure of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) to perceptively boost Tripura’s economy. Similar inabilities of the governments in the two other states — Meghalaya and Nagaland — undoubtedly played a role in undermining the prospects of the ruling parties.
What the turn in the BJP’s favour means is that the party has been able to overcome to a very large extent the disadvantages posed by its image as a party of Hindu chauvinists which will impose its fetishes about not eating beef and pursue its policies denigrating Christian missionaries by effectively playing its “sabka saath, sabka vikas” or development for all card.
Considering that the northeast has always lagged behind the rest of the country where infrastructure and economic growth are considered, the possibility of vikas with the added advantage of the new rulers in the states being able to act in sync with the centre evidently had an irresistible appeal.
This attraction could not but be boosted by the anti-incumbency factor in a state like Tripura where the CPI-M has been in power for the last quarter of a century. It is no longer enough for a chief minister to gain votes by being the “poorest” person to hold the position, as Manik Sarkar did. The ideology of “simple living and high thinking” which used to attract the ordinary people to communism has been eroded, first, by the not-so-abstemious lifestyle of some of the comrades and, secondly, by a sluggish economy. Any promise, therefore, of rapid material advancement pays political dividends.
Sarkar may have also paid the price of being a follower of the Prakash Karat-line of the CPI-M’s politics which refuses to align with the Congress to fight the BJP. It appears, therefore, that the Marxists in Tripura did not take the challenge posed by the BJP seriously enough and continued to regard the Congress as the main adversary even if it was fading away. Had the party been able to focus more aggressively on what it sees as the BJP’s politics of communal polarization, it might have been to save its last remaining bastion.
What the outcome points to is the need for a party to constantly reinvent itself. The CPI-M failed to do so, sticking instead to an ideology which died with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Neither did the Congress, which was seemingly clueless about its members fleeing in droves to the Trinamool Congress and the CPI-M. It also did not pay enough attention to the region with Rahul Gandhi failing to match the energetic campaigning of Modi and Amit Shah.
In contrast, the BJP provides an excellent example of donning a new garb because it has been able to develop opportunism to a fine art. For one, it has no compunctions about gobbling up an entire party to win. Although such an act of absorption does not speak well of a party which has thus been swallowed, it shows that the BJP will stop at nothing to go past the winning line without any thought to whether its act will cause indigestion. The BJP evidently believes in living in the present.
For another, the BJP has no hesitation about dispensing with its reservations about beef in order to get the parties in Meghalaya and Nagaland on board, confirming what Asaduddin Owaisi of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen said about the cow being “mummy” in north India, but yummy in the northeast.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday constituted a 46-member Drafting Committee headed by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the party’s March 16-18 plenary here.
He also constituted an Organising Committee, four subgroups, besides a Constitution Amendment Committee.
The Organising Committee headed by party Treasurer Motilal Vora has Oscar Fernandes as Convenor and party General Secretaries and incharges of states as members.
There are nine special invitees to the Organising Committee, including Ahmed Patel, Sheila Dikshit, Ajay Maken and Kuldeep Bishnoi.
Party leader Mukul Wasnik is Convenor of the Drafting Committee that will finalise resolutions to be adopted at the session.
The Drafting Committee has party heavyweights like former Union Ministers A.K. Antony, P. Chidambaram, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mallikarjun Kharge, besides Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.
The ‘political’ subgroup headed by Antony has former Union Minister Kumari Selja as Convenor. Members include Azad, Kharge and former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.
The ‘economic affairs’ subgroup headed by former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has Jairam Ramesh as Convenor and Antony, Kamal Nath, Anand Sharma and M. Veerapa Moily among the members.
The ‘international affairs’ subgroup headed by Anand Sharma has party MP Jyotiraditya Scindia as Convenor and its members include former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, Antony, Chidambaram, Salman Khursid, Shashi Tharoor and Amarinder Singh.
The subgroup on ‘agriculture, employment and poverty alleviation’ headed by former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has former MP Meenakshi Natarajan as Convenor and members include Amarinder Singh, K.V. Thomas, Randeep Surjewala, and Jairam Ramesh.
The Constitution Amendment Committee headed by Azad has Janardan Dwivedi as Convenor.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews, Politics
Sheila Dikshit
By Sarwar Kashani,
New Delhi : Former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit is not averse to returning to active politics if her party asks her because the time is ripe for the Congress to bounce back as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s credibility has hit “rock bottom” due to the “all-talk, no-action” politics of the BJP government.
But the 80-year-old Congress politician does “not have the confidence” to say if her party can beat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) riding a Modi wave in the 2019 general election.
“I don’t have the confidence to give you the answer on this. The Congress knows it well; its leader (President Rahul Gandhi) knows it well. Rahul is doing as much as he can and as much as is possible,” Dikshit told IANS in reply to a question on the Congress’ chances in the next Lok Sabha elections.
She, however, said if the Congress talked about real issues and didn’t get lured by the BJP’s Hindutva agenda, it can stage a comeback.
“We have to talk about issues, the aspirations of people that the Modi government has failed to address, failed to meet. People are suffering because of rising prices, people find it difficult to buy fuel, there are no jobs, India’s growth is declining… These should be our political planks.
“We have to scrutinise the promises made by the BJP and seek answers from Prime Minister Modi on why he has failed to keep them.”
She said BJP’s Hindutva narrative may no longer be saleable to the electorate of India because “by now they must have understood that Modi is all talk and no action”.
“Modi’s and the BJP’s credibility has hit rock bottom… it is shaken. The BJP has not delivered on its election promises. Mere foreign visits (by the Prime Minister) don’t bring jobs, don’t bring growth. The country has not progressed. In fact, it is on a regressive path. We will have to counter that,” the three-time Delhi Chief Minister said.
Asked if she was ready to return to active politics after she withdrew her nomination as the Congress’ chief ministerial face in last year’s Uttar Pradesh elections, Dikshit said: “I am ready, but am not seeking any role. I am underlining the word seeking. I am ready to take any role if the party asks me to.”
She said she withdrew from the Uttar Pradesh elections only after the Congress allied with the Samajwadi Party much against her wish.
“There was a mismatch. We fought elections with a slogan ’27 saal UP behaal’ (27 years of Uttar Pradesh’s sorry state). It was a reference to the number of years that the state remained in the hands of non-Congress governments, including the Samajwadi Party. However, the alliance contradicted the slogan and I voluntarily announced that I am stepping down.”
About Delhi politics, she said she won’t mind either returning to the capital where incumbent Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has also failed to keep the promises he made before coming to power.
She, however, regretted how “we underestimated” Kejriwal when he was debutting as a politician in Delhi and thought he won’t make unrealistic promises for contesting elections.
“Kejriwal made promises that he cannot keep because an elected government in Delhi has limited powers. He made promises without understanding the realities of Delhi’s limited statehood and today you see people are realising it. I am not sure if people at the grassroots level have understood it, but I know he (Kejriwal) won’t be able to do much about it.”
Having grown and lived most of her life in Delhi, Dikshit, who is largely credited with transforming the capital during her 15-year rule, said it “of course hurts” to see the city called unsafe for women or the crime capital of India.
She has penned a 175-page autobiography “Citizen Delhi: My Times, My Life” (published by Bloomsbury India), recalling her childhood days cycling around the city in a carefree manner.
“The times were also such that it never occurred to my parents that something could go wrong if we were left largely to our own devices,” she recalls in the book, wishing if only those days of innocence could return and children of Delhi could be safe and carefree.
“Rape was not talked about, at least in our family and in our circle. We didn’t know what it was. In fact, I didn’t know what rape was until after many years of my marriage when I read about it. That was the age of innocence, those were times of innocence,” she said.
(Sarwar Kashani can be contacted at sarwar.k@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : BJP chief Amit Shah on Friday described Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s style of politics in Parliament as “undemocratic” after the opposition party created a ruckus during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech.
Shah’s comments came at a meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party Parliamentary Party here, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar told reporters. The meeting was attended by Modi too.
Slamming the Congress for disturbing Parliament over the Rafale jets deal with France, Shah explained the main points about the agreement. “But will it be good for the nation to discuss details of each and every component?”
Shah also praised the Union Budget 2018, saying it was meant to benefit the farmers and the middle class.
—IANS
