Sunday, June 3, 2012

Kejriwal calls five politicians corrupt…..still none from the BJP!


How obvious it is that Kejriwal (and the whole of Team Anna) is nothing but a stooge of the BJP. Very sparing of its criticism of the BJP (and doing it only when it is absolutely necessary), Team Anna has found one innovative excuse after another to protect the BJP and attack the Congress.

Apparently, passing the Lokpal Bill is only the Congress’s responsibility. Why? Because it is in power at the Center. Fantastic! And what about ensuring the support of the other parties who seem not to be supporting the bill? Well, that’s the Congress’s problem to handle! What about their favorite party, the BJP? Now don’t say anything about the BJP please! When the BJP opposed the Lok Ayukta clause in the Lokpal Bill (a volte face on the Sense of the House Resolution given to Anna), Team Anna must have been acutely embarrassed. Guess what clever solution then found to avoid attacking the BJP? They found Mamata to blame instead! Thank god, there is always Mamata to blame! And for every accusation that people make that they are partisan in their support and opposition to select political parties (in particular towards their support to the BJP), they point towards Justice Hegde’s strong action against Yeddy. True indeed, but what about all the obvious omissions of the passions of the other BJP patriarchs and seniors? What about Narendra Modi’s stoic refusal for eight years to have a Lok Ayukta in his state? What about Pokhriyal of Uttarakhand fame who finally had to be sacked by the party just before the state elections? What about the murder of the RTI activist Shehla Masood in MP in which a BJP MLA is allegedly involved? Surely Anna could have spoken against the corruption in the BMC (Mumbai)?

But Kejriwal chose to ignore all this when he named four names yesterday at the joint rally with Ramdev. Mulayam Singh Yadav (now isn’t he the one propping up the Congress…..putting paid to all of BJP’s well crafted plans to topple the UPA?), Mayawati (another thorn in the flesh for the BJP), Laloo (one name perhaps rightly named) and Jayalalitha (now why doesn’t she formally join the NDA????!). No Naveen Patnaik (remember all the land acquisition for Posco and Vedanta charges?), no Nitish Kumar (remember the Rs 11000 crore “treasury” scam?), no Bal Thackeray (remember BMC roads scam???) and of course no BJP Chief Ministers.

The ganging up with Ramdev is curious. Ramdev wants the government to get back all the black money that has been stashed abroad by corrupt Indians. How about starting with him only first? What about the island that he allegedly owns near Glasgow, Scotland? What about the charges against his ayurvedic formulations (they contained human body parts?)? Isn’t it true that the Enforcement Directorate is after Ramdev too? Should he just clear his name first before mounting an attack at the government? Is it the government that is attacking Ramdev for his illegal businesses, or is Ramdev attacking the government to pre-empt any action against his businesses?

Team Anna is split on whether to attack Manmohan Singh personally or not. But all of them are united that whether he is culpable personally or not, he is surely guilty of not having acted against the so called corrupt ministers in his cabinet. Is he less or more guilty than Anna – who too seems to tolerate such wanton elements like Kejriwal, Bhushan and Bedi in his movement? Did Anna ask the tough questions when it came to Bedi’s travel statements (ripping the government the most in the process) or Kejriwal’s funds management skills and delayed payment of dues to the government or Bhushan’s favorable allotment of land in Noida? I doubt it….because if he had, he would have sacked the trio much the same way he wants the PM to sack 15 cabinet ministers.

Maybe Team Anna needs a lesson in basic economics. Maybe it needs to understand that its difference of views with the Congress’s economic policies doesn’t make it a case of corruption. Did the cheap or free allocation of 2G spectrum and coal blocks lead to super normal profits for the private companies that supposedly benefited from the government’s largess? Is the government’s role maximizing revenues (are we a purely capitalistic country), or allocating resources for the most optimal public good (see where 2G penetration has reached thanks to cheap pricing)? Because if Team Anna understood what governance is, they may perhaps understand why the coal blocks were allocated in a jiffy. It is this urgency of action that led to the addition of 20000 MW of power last year (more than what the BJP put together when it ruled during the 10th five year plan). A little knowledge of economics would show Anna that not everything can be linked to corruption – the higher petrol prices now are not because of corruption elsewhere as they claim….

Team Anna may also want to read the newspaper reports about all the people who seem to be flocking to them for dubious reasons. General VK Singh is the latest in this list. But maybe Anna should read the Business Standard front page story of the 31st of May “Army Chief slams BEML on Tatra, awards it Rs 1500 cr deal” – where it is alleged that the General signed a $275 million contract for 204 ARVs (Armoured Recovery Vehicles) in spite of BEML’s poor past record. It may also want to check out why the CAG made a mess out of the Antrix probe – alleging that it was a Rs 2 lac crore scam – when it made a huge mistake in comparing the price of S band spectrum (akin to the price of a house in Virar) with that of 3G (a house on Malabar Hill). Again, Anna may want to ask Medha Patkar which form of electricity she prefers because I am a little confused here. She’s spoken against hydro power in the past, continues to speak against nuclear power in the present and also keeps complaining about thermal power every now and then. So does she advocate we burn wood to run our factories? But knowing Team Anna, and its political motivations, it is unlikely to check these things out. That is why yesterday was another farce. Nothing but a farce.

The real truth is that when we refer to Anna’s movement, we should perhaps add the words “Sponsored by BJP” to it. In any case, the people of this country have figured this out. Why not acknowledge it publicly then???? There is no shame in being a political movement. But there should be shame in trying to hoodwink the public….

2 comments:

  1. absolutely true...anna and his sancho panzas need to ride off into the sunset....let the immature media find other babies to which it can act as a surrogate mother.

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