Why Kejriwal gave a rude jolt to Kumar Vishwas?
Kumar Vishwas appeared in my show Aap Ki Adalat this weekend and his replies to my questions clearly showed that he was hurt badly because of the treatment meted out to him by the Aam Aadmi Party leadership. He narrated how the Congress candidate Sushil Gupta against whom he campaigned during Delhi assembly polls was defeated by the electorate, but the same person managed to wangle a Rajya Sabha ticket from AAP. Kumar Vishwas also narrated how, in the national interest, he had opposed Arvind Kejriwal for questioning the Indian army’s surgical strike. Vishwas revealed how during the last seven months he was being consistently sidelined by the party leadership.
Listening to Kumar Vishwas’ replies, it appears to me that the moral values and democratic ideals for which Arvind Kejriwal and his supporters had fought, have vanished somewhere in the darkness. Most of the frontline colleagues who had led the movement with Kejriwal have now left him, and Vishwas seem to be the last one in the link.
The very act of nominating N D Gupta and Sushil Gupta to Rajya Sabha, bypassing Kumar Vishwas, clearly underlines the fact that, for Kejriwal, personal relations or political morality do not matter. Kejriwal and his coterie will have to face the political loss for giving tickets to these two worthies, and this would surely hurt all those who had viewed Kejriwal as a symbol of clean, alternative politics in India.
Why is Pakistan not granting consular access to Jadhav?
On Thursday, Pakistan circulated a video of Kulbhushan Jadhav in which he “thanked” Pakistan for letting him meet his mother and wife on December 25. In the video, which had many cuts implying that it was doctored, Jadhav was shown as saying that he had not been tortured in custody and that he saw an Indian diplomat yelling at his mother and wife. The External Affairs ministry in Delhi dismissed this video as “propagandistic exercise” which “simply carries no credibility”. The ministry said, “the absurdity of a captive under duress certifying his own welfare while mouthing allegations of his captors clearly merits no comment”.
My question is very simple: if Pakistan believes in humanitarian approach, why doesn’t it allow Jadhav to have consular access from India? India has requested consular access 23 times from Pakistan, but was declined. It is plain common sense – how can a convicted prisoner whom the Pakistani authorities are in a hurry to execute, praise his captors and blame his own country? Nobody will believe this. One should also understand the compulsions which Jadhav is facing while in custody of his enemies. One should understand under what pressure Jadhav is being forced to appear in confessional videos. One should sympathize with him for going through such ordeals.
Why Maharashtra CM Fadnavis acted with restraint ?
On Wednesday, Maharashtra police acted with utmost restraint when Dalit protesters went on rampage to enforce statewide bandh. It is true that caste violence in Maharashtra never erupted before in this manner when Maratha and Dalits came face-to-face. There seems to be some conspiracy at work behind this violence, but the restraint exercised by police is commendable. Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis chose not to commit the mistake done by his counterpart in neighbouring Gujarat, where police took action against Dalits, and this gave rise to emergence of local Dalit leaders. Fadnavis learnt the lesson, and he asked the police force to exercise utmost restraint. Congress and other opposition leaders were waiting to take political advantage, had there been a major conflagration, but they were disappointed.
Electoral bonds for political parties is a welcome step
The Centre has notified issue of interest-free electoral bonds for political parties who wish to take donations during elections. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has taken this welcome step to ensure transparency in political donations. All political parties should welcome this step, because there seems to be a popular perception that most of the political parties take huge amounts of black money from vested interests during elections. In the last 70 years of independence, political parties had been taking donations from corporates and individuals, and most of the money was unaccounted. With the launch of electoral bonds, KYC (know your customer) details will have to be filled up by the donor, they the individual or company may prefer to remain anonymous. This step will go a long way towards ensuring a clean, free and fair election.
Will Donald Trump’s threat to Pakistan work?
US President Donald Trump in a tweet on New Year’s Day has threatened to cut off all aid to Pakistan, saying that his country had “foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools”. Trump also added: “They (Pakistan) give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more.”
Soon after Trump gave this threat, the Pakistani civilian and military leadership went into a huddle, and issued statements claiming how the Pakistani army had fought terrorism over the years. At the same time, Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan barred terror mastermind Hafiz Saeed’s Jamaat-ud Dawah, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation trust from collecting donations.
Clearly, Pakistan is doing this to assuage US concerns, similarly like the cosmetic “house arrest” of Hafiz Saeed last year. Pakistan should now realize that such make-believe actions against terror masterminds will not suffice. The rulers in Islamabad should realize the enormity of the dangers emanating from terror, and must take concrete action, otherwise the world will not take Pakistan’s claims at face value.
As for Donald Trump, he is now saying what India has been saying for the last several decades. There is nothing called ‘good terrorist’ or ‘bad terrorist’. Trump’s assertion will have one effect – Hafiz Saeed and other terror outfit leaders sitting inside Pakistan will now blame India for goading Trump to act in this manner. The jihadi outfits will spew out more venom against both India and the US.
The Mumbai rooftop inferno
On Thursday midnight, 14 people, including eleven women, died and over 50 people were injured in a blaze that swept through two illegal rooftop restaurants in one of the nightlife hubs of Mumbai metropolis. Most of the deaths occurred due to suffocation as the women had locked themselves inside a washroom to save themselves from the blaze. Within half an hour, the fire completed gutted a rooftop restro-bar and an adjoining cafe, trapping guests because of narrow exits. Kamala Mills compound in Lower Parel houses nearly 35 restro-bars, several corporate offices and news channels. Police is now on the lookout of the absconding restro-bar managers and owners, but the deaths of 14 people have laid bare the venality of the entire system that includes the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the fire brigade and police.
It raises questions about how safe are our public spaces. This year we saw people dying in a stampede at a temple, people losing their lives in another stampede on a railway foot overbridge and now this midnight inferno. After every tragedy, an inquiry is ordered, and two or three persons are made the scapegoats, but the fact remains that even after 70 years of independence, there is no guarantee of safety for people in public places, nor has the system been able to make people aware about their security and safety.
One of the local BJP MPs in Mumbai has blamed the Shiv Sena that runs the BMC for allowing these illegal restro-bars to run. There were over 36 restaurants in the Kamala Mills compound alone. Hundreds of people visit these restaurants daily, but nobody knows how many of them are legal, and how many are being run illegally with slush money. Nobody knows how many restaurants strictly adhere to fire safety norms, or how many of them have fire safety approvals from the fire brigade authorities. Most of these restaurants run illegally because of patronage of local politicians and bureaucrats. Arraigning four or five accused persons for this inferno will not suffice. There must be strict safety audit of all restaurants that run in Mumbai, and those shielding illegal restaurants must be punished.
What Pakistan is trying to hide about Kulbhushan Jadhav ?
Pakistan’s intentions about death row convict Kulbhushan Jadhav have been suspect from day one. He was not tried in a law court. He was not allowed consular access, nor was he allowed to hire a lawyer to defend him. He was hurriedly given death sentence by a military court. When India approached the International Court of Justice and got his death sentence stayed, the Pakistan army, under international pressure, allowed him to meet his mother and wife. On Monday, the world was witness to a sorry spectacle of a death row convict facing his mother and wife behind a glass partition, with cameras keeping a close watch on what was being done or spoken on both sides. Even the clothes worn by his mother and wife were changed before the meeting. There was an intercom on which Jadhav spoke to his wiife and mother. Closeup video of Jadhav clearly shows he was tortured and there were injury marks on his head, neck and ear. The medical report of a German doctor based in Dubai that was flourished clearly showed that it was manipulated, with a date written by hand on the printed report.
This goes against all canons of natural justice. Not only that, it is outrightly inhuman. Imagine, a mother going to meet her son, and a wife going to meet her husband, after a wait of 21 months, and yet they are unable to even touch him, or ask him in private whether he was alright?
The most outrageous aspect of this meeting was that the Pakistan government orchestrated it as a big PR stunt. If Kulbhushan Jadhav is alright, he has not been tortured, then what is the problem in providing him consular access? This is a norm that is prevalent worldwide, and India has sent requests for consular access at least 20 times. Pakistan government should realise that the entire world is closely watching the outcome of this case.
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Yogi breaks the Noida ‘jinx’
The decision of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath to break the jinx about a CM visiting Noida is a welcome step. The Yogi has opted to shun superstition and visit Noida to oversee preparations for the inauguration by the Prime Minister of Metro Magenta Line between Kalkaji and Noida on December 25. For the last 29 years, chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh had been avoiding visits to Noida because of the widespread superstition that any CM visiting Noida loses his or her seat soon after.
The then CM Veer Bahadur Singh visited Noida in 1988 and soon after lost his seat. Narayan Dutt Tiwari visited Noida as CM in 1989, and lost power. A similar fate awaited Mulayam Singh Yadav in 1995, Kalyan Singh in 1999 and Mayawati in 2012, and all of them lost their seats as CM soon after. Rajnath Singh as CM inaugurated the DND flyover from the Delhi end, while Akhilesh Yadav openly said that he believed in the jinx. He did not visit Noida even once during his five-year tenure. Yogi Adityanath as CM has vowed to break this superstition. It shows the level of confidence that he has, as far as religious superstition is concerned.
There should be no place for such jinx and superstition in the 21st century. Normally, jinx and superstition arise when there are surprising coincidences. Rajnath Singh did not visit Noida and yet lost his CM seat. Akhilesh stayed away from Noida as CM and yet failed to retain his CM seat. I consider all such superstitions as foolish.
Why trial court’s 2G verdict runs counter to what SC said in its judgement ?
On Thursday, a Delhi CBI court acquitted all the seventeen 2G scam accused, including former Communication Minister A. Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi, several businessmen and former bureaucrats, and severely castigated the Special Prosecutor and CBI for failing to provide concrete evidences of corruption.
The special judge O. P. Saini in his 1,552-page verdict ominously wrote: “For the last seven years, on all working days, summer vacation included, I religiously sat in open court from 10 am to 5 pm, waiting for someone with some legally admissible evidence, but in vain.” This speaks much about our lower judiciary and the prosecution. The special court’s verdict clearly runs counter to the Supreme Court order cancelling all 122 licenses issued during the 2G scam.
The Supreme Court while cancelling all 122 2G spectrum licenses had clearly described the allotments as “arbitrary, capricious and contrary to public interest”. The apex court verdict had clearly said that the minister (A. Raja) “had virtually gifted away the important national asset at throwaway prices”. And yet, the trial court has acquitted Raja and others.
On its part, the CBI reacted to the trial court verdict by saying it would appeal before the Delhi High Court. The CBI spokesman has said “it appears that the evidence adduced to substantiate the charges by the prosecution has not been appreciated in its proper perspective by the learned court. The CBI will be taking necessary legal remedies in the matter.”
One thing is very clear: the CBI and its prosecutor did not work diligently. Had they worked seriously, the judge would not have made such stinging remarks. The judge wrote four pages on the role of the public prosecutor, and described how the entire case was dealt with in a casual manner. The judge, in his verdict, also noted how accused A. Raja fought the case like a clever lawyer.
If one carefully reads the judge’s verdict, he has nowhere out rightly rejected the charge that there was corruption and wheeling-dealing in the 2G scam. His main contention was that the CBI failed to produce concrete evidences.
Soon after the 2G scam verdict, Congress leaders quickly claimed their stand were vindicated. The Congress leaders alleged that the BJP “used” this 2G scam to gain political advantage in the 2014 elections. It is true, during the 2014 elections, BJP leaders were mentioning “2G, 3G, Jijaji” in most of their speeches, and described the 2G scam as one of India’s biggest scams.
Thursday’s verdict may cause political loss to the BJP, because the common people do not normally read the entire verdict. A perception will surely gain ground that all the accused in the 2G scam have been acquitted by the court. Few people will try to understand that it was the Supreme Court which had described the 2G license allotments as “arbitrary, capricious and contrary to public interest”, and had cancelled all 122 licenses. In the final run, it is the perception that counts, and it will be tough for BJP leaders to explain the correct position to the masses.
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Stop dumping of industrial waste in Ganga first
The Union Minister of State for Ganga Rejuvenation Dr Satyapal Singh has called for stopping immersion of ashes of human beings in the holy Ganga river, citing it as one of the causes of pollution. Dr Singh has said that this centuries-old Hindu tradition should be revisited and instead of immersing ashes in Ganga, people should bury them on land and plant a sapling. In Hindu mythology, the river Ganga has been given the stature of a goddess, and millions of Hindus consider it as sacred. It is their religious belief that a human being can attain salvation if the ashes are immersed in Ganga after their death. People, by and large, have accepted that rivers in India are being polluted when pooja materials and flowers along with idols are immersed. But the main culprit behind river pollution is dumping of industrial waste. Hundreds of factories, mostly tanneries, are located on the banks of river Ganga, and they dump toxic waste material into the river daily. The Centre should first concentrate on removing these polluting industries from the banks of Ganga, and then think of “revisiting” centuries-old Hindu traditions.
What Rahul should learn from Gujarat poll results
On Tuesday, Congress President Rahul Gandhi told mediapersons outside Parliament that the Gujarat polls have delivered BJP a ‘zabardast jhatka’ (strong shock), and the BJP promptly responded to say that Rahul was enjoying ‘defeat as victory’. It also came to light that on Monday evening when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was addressing party workers after the twin victories in Gujarat and HP, Rahul Gandhi took time off to watch a Hollywood film at a cinema hall in Delhi. Rahul may have wanted to freshen up and seek relief from the hurly-burly world of politics, but when he will sit with his party leaders soon to analyze the Gujarat results, he may be shocked to find some harsh facts.
Rahul may notice that the BJP lost in those areas, where neither GST nor the Gujarat model were important issues. The farmers in the rural areas of Saurashtra belt voted against BJP because of low prices of cotton and groundnut. Rahul may also notice that in cities like Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot, where GST was the burning issue among traders, the Congress fared badly. In Patidar-dominated areas too, the Congress lost and the BJP performed better.
In his speeches, Rahul incessantly attacked Modi’s Gujarat model, but 49 per cent of voters in Gujarat voted for Modi. The Gujarat poll results will also serve as a wake-up call, a warning from the voters, for BJP, which has to tackle the agrarian distress in rural areas on a war footing.
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Entire credit of Gujarat victory goes to Modi
Dislodged from power for the last 22 years in Gujarat, the Congress leadership had pinned its hopes this time on voters’ unhappiness with the BJP. Rahul Gandhi showed up in his new avatar this time during the campaign and the media lapped it up to say that Rahul was giving a tough challenge to Modi in the latter’s home turf, but the final results have dashed the hopes of Congress leaders. Also dashed were the hopes of Modi’s other political opponents like Lalu Prasad and Mamata Banerjee, who had calculated that the 2019 LS battle would have been easier if the BJP was dislodged from its Gujarat citadel.
Who else could have understood this game better than Narendra Modi? The victory in Gujarat reinforces the trust people had in Modi’s leadership, and the hopes of Modi’s opponents have been dashed. There will be fresh efforts now to prop up an anti-Modi political front, but this is not easy. Because if Congress joins this front, questions would be raised about the leadership abilities of party chief Rahul Gandhi, and Congress would be loath to face such questions.
The Congress should learn some lessons from its failed Gujarat experiment. Rahul Gandhi should have trusted old Congress leaders instead of his young, immature associates. This could have changed the entire picture. Rahul felt that the young trio – Hardik Patel, Jignesh Mevani and Alpesh Thakor – would help his party get a majority. Because of this wrong calculation, Rahul ignored and sidelined Shankarsingh Vaghela. 14 MLAs left the Congress and joined BJP, and this harmed the party at the hustings. It’s true, Vaghela failed to provide a strong political alternative, but he succeeded in preventing the Congress to appear as a forceful alternative. Had Vaghela been in the Congress, the results could have been different.
The results prove one thing. That, Modi knows the pulse of the voters of Gujarat, and that, the people of his state love him. That is why when Modi made emotional appeals to touch the chords of the hearts of the voters, the message went through. The results of the second phase of voting are there for all to see. Modi’s magic worked, and the way was cleared for the BJP for a sixth successive term. And the credit for all this rightly goes to Modi.
There are lessons to be learnt by the BJP too. The party fared well in the urban centres, but if it had performed well in rural areas, it could have been a landslide. There seems to be lack of enthusiasm for the BJP in rural areas because the farmers are in distress and unhappy, and the party will have to work towards that end.
It is true traders in Surat, Rajkot, Ahmedabad and Vadodara were angry over the implementation of GST. The traders, who were traditional supporters of BJP, felt that the party had brought their thriving trade to a halt. Rahul Gandhi sniffed an opportunity and he derided GST as Gabbar Singh Tax. He assumed that the traders’ community would support the Congress this time, but Modi took up the issue at the right time. Modi is a politician who personally knows many of the businessmen in Gujarat by name. He sent Arun Jaitley and Amit Shah to talk to the traders, and all their grievances over GST were addressed, both by Jaitley and Amit Shah. That is why, there are seats in Surat, where the BJP candidates won by huge margins. The Congress leaders and Rahul Gandhi are now scratching their heads after the results.
Patidar movement leader Hardik Patel faced the biggest disappointment from the results. There were huge gatherings at his rallies, he worked on the emotions of people, and went to the extent of saying that ‘even if my parents contest on BJP ticket, do not vote for them, and support the Congress’, but Patidar voters did not listen to his emotional appeals. They voted for BJP. The Patidars were, of course, angry with the BJP, but they preferred not to vote for the Congress. You will be surprised to know that in as many as 29 constituencies, the number of NOTA (none of the above) votes was higher than the victory margin. It worked both ways. BJP won 15, the Congress 13 and one Independent won because of NOTA. Nearly 5.5 lakhs voters in Gujarat pressed the NOTA button. This amounted to roughly 1.8 per cent of the total votes polled.
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