Modi desperately needs someone to blame for all the scams by his friends

In coming days more scams may come to light for the veneer of anti-corruption crusader, Narendrabhai, is off. He needs a scapegoat, say ‘Naamdars’ and even Raghuram Rajan, never mind if doesn’t wash

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Faraz Ahmad

First he blamed India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for all the ill beset his regime and his inability to fulfil even one of the tall promises and bombastic claims he made in his election campaign speeches.

When critics mocked him pointing out that poor Pandit Nehru died half a century before Narendra Modi’s advent and there were 12 prime ministers in between, he discreetly dropped this. Next target was Indira Gandhi. He dropped this too after a while because no one in the Rashitrya Swayamsevbak Sangh (RSS) could compare with Indira Gandhi’s concern for the poor, her achievement of freeing Bangladesh from the oppressive regime of West Pakistani army and her supreme martyrdom unmatched by any of her baiters.

He discreetly avoided naming Rajiv Gandhi, perhaps for the same reason, knowing that anger and annoyance seethed within a large section of the populace in the manner Rajiv was assassinated and because of close association between one of the suspects in the conspiracy Chandraswamy and many BJP leaders, it better be left alone.

There are no free lunches, goes the adage. Obviously these worthies did something to spell bind Narendrabhai. Why else he and his Government would look the other side while all of them indulged in unbridled loot? But this is not the end of the story. In the coming days many more scams may come to light for the veneer of anti-corruption crusader is off Narendrabhai. He desperately needs a scapegoat or two, say ‘Naamdars’ and even Raghuram Rajan, never mind if doesn’t wash.

But, Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh whose personal integrity was never in doubt, was the biggest punching bags for our Prime Minister to the extent of even virtually abusing him on the floor of Rajya Sabha for questioning the wisdom of Modi’s remarkable move to demonetise 1,000 and 500 rupee notes with the sweep of his left hand. So far so good.

Now that the Reserve Bank of India has exposed the false claims made by our much revered Prime Minister and his apparent amnesia. Remember “Mujhe pachas din ka samay dijiye. Agar uske baad bhi kuch nahi ho to jis chaurahe par kahenge main aane ko tayyar hoon aur jo saza chhiye mujhe dijiye. (Give me just 50 days, if even after that things are not set right you name the cross road where I should come and you decide whatever punishment, which I will humbly accept)”, said Modi in response to the outcry of all sections of society over this unthinking ‘Sultani Farman.’

As the elections approach and he can see his diminishing popularity, it’s not bringing any humility or modesty to either the Prime Minister or his factotum BJP president Amit Shah. Instead his latest is accusation that the “namdaars” gave unsecured loans to the big money bags directing bank officials on phone to release crores to the likes of Vijay Mallaya, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and of course you name it and all the big names of our corporate honchos are defaulters.

Strange though it is that the ‘naamdars’ were obliging the money bags. But the money bags opened their purses not to these so called naamdars but to the self-proclaimed chaiwala with the sole qualification of having presided over butchering of Muslims in 2002 but no prior experience of a day in Parliament. We already have documentary evidence (even if the Supreme Court has refused to take cognisance of it) of Sahara Shri, Aditya Birla and Vijay Mallaya issuing cheques of amounts running into crores to Modi directly or to the BJP. During the entire election campaign Modi was touring the whole country on Gautam Adani’s private plane and in fact arrived in Delhi to take oath as the 13th Prime Minister of India again in Adani’s private plane.

Saharashri Subrat Roy who was in Tihar for defrauding small investors of Rs 20,000 crores and cheekily refused to comply with the Supreme Court directive to pay up, has not budged to date but now close to two years he is out in the open strutting about happily and the Court merely issues threats from time to time with no action. Is there a quid pro quo?

Nirav Modi absconds India after swindling the Punjab National Bank (PNB) of several thousand crores but keeps an appointment with Modi in Davos, within days of his escape. Won’t the world’s most widely celebrated sleuth currently the nation’s National Security Adviser and the eyes and ears of the Prime Minister Ajit Doval know of Niravbhai’s nocturnal activities? But the ‘naamdars’ of the last UPA government ought to explain says our Prime Minister in a public meeting. Nirav’s uncle Mehul Choksi, Narendrabhai’s bosom pal whom he singled out to address in a public meeting as Mehulbhai, did a one up on nephew Nirav and just not defrauded the banks of corresponding amount and left along with Niravbhai, but did not stay put in London unlike nephew Nirav but smartly applied for citizenship of Antigua in Carribean Islands.

Of course Narendra bhai did not recommend Mehulbhai’s citizenship application but then an enquiry by the Antigua government of the past record of Mehul bhai came upto Mumbai Police via the External Affairs ministry, meaning the Central Government of Narendrabhai and it promptly issued a character certificate facilitating Mehulbhai’s escape from India and while there is no proof at the moment that in his one to one meeting with the Antiguan Prime Minister Gaston Browne during the CHOGM summit in London in April this year he made any recommendations on behalf of brother Mehulbhai, he certainly knew of Mehul bhai making good with close to Rs 24,000 crore and obviously made no effort to forewarn Browne of Mehul Choksi’s background. Doesn’t that smack of apparent complicity.

There are no free lunches, goes the adage. Obviously these worthies did something to spell bind Narendrabhai. Why else he and his Government would look the other side while all of them indulged in unbridled loot? But this is not the end of the story. In the coming days many more scams may come to light for the veneer of anti-corruption crusader is off Narendrabhai. He desperately needs a scapegoat or two, say ‘Naamdars’ and even Raghuram Rajan, never mind if doesn’t wash.

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Published: 06 Sep 2018, 8:47 AM