BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today
Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought India’s second largest state, Bihar, under his belt last week, 20 months after its voters had decisively rejected his Bharatiya Janata Party in the Assembly elections.
The Constitution provides for change of government through elections. But change of government can also result from realignment of parties in the legislature.
In its heyday, the Congress party had seized power in states on some occasions by engineering defections from other parties. Now Modi does it.
Bihar is the fourth state where the BJP seized power after losing the elections. The others are Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Goa, all comparatively small states.
In Arunachal Pradesh a majority of the Congress legislators broke away and joined first a regional party and then the BJP, making it the ruling party. Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju, who belongs to this state, is credited with masterminding the palace coup.
Though the Congress lost its majority in the Manipur Assembly in this year’s elections, it remained the largest party. But the BJP, which had fewer seats than the Congress, seized power by enlisting the support of the small regional parties. It justified the manoeuvre by pointing out that the electoral verdict was against the Congress, which was in power.
It conveniently overlooked this logic in Goa when it lost its majority in the Goa Assembly. Here, again, the Congress was the largest party but the BJP won the support of regional parties and seized power.
Political manipulations are not the only stock in trade of the BJP which has set its mind on acquiring the dominant position the Congress once held as the party that had spearheaded the freedom struggle.
Soon after Modi took office, government agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is entitled to look into corruption charges against public servants, the Enforcement Directorate, which has the power to investigate money laundering cases, and the Income Tax department, whose mandate is wide enough to track black money transactions, initiated investigations targeted at opposition leaders.
The agencies have not been able to pin any major crime on anyone yet, but reports indicate that some investigations are in an advanced stage. They include allegedly fraudulent transfer of the shares of the National Herald by Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her son and party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, and alleged money laundering by Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union Minister P Chidambaram.
It was a case registered by the CBI against Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav for allegedly accepting bribes for some deals of the time when his father and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad was the Railway Minister that presented Bihar’s Janata Dal (United) Chief Minister Nitish Kumar with the opportunity to break the alliance with the RJD and form a government with the BJP as the partner.
All the indicted leaders have denied the charges and claimed they are victims of political vendetta. Tejaswi Yadav has said he was a 14-year-old kid when he allegedly took bribes.
Nitish Kumar was heading a JD(U)-BJP government when the BJP chose Modi as its prime ministerial candidate. He broke up the coalition citing the communal carnage in Gujarat under Modi’s watch. He justifies his return to the BJP camp saying secularism cannot be a cover for corruption.
It is disingenuous to project the choice before India as one between corruption and communalism, which are not mutually exclusive anyway. Many BJP chief ministers have attracted charges of corruption. Modi himself is no paragon. He parted with a costly suit presented by a diamond merchant only after he was widely criticised for donning it. Several BJP leaders are among those from whom large sums of unaccounted money have been seized.
One of the states now on the BJP radar is Tamil Nadu where two Dravidian parties have alternated in power for four decades. Modi espies an opportunity in the vacuum created there by the death of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa last December. Her All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has split into two. Both factions are vulnerable to pressure from the investigative agencies and both have shown readiness to align with the BJP. Modi is trying to unite them before they align with his party.
The next parliamentary elections are due in 2019. As the poll approaches the investigating agencies may come up with more cases against opposition leaders. There are reports that the BJP is trying to revive the long-dead Bofors scandal of Rajiv Gandhi’s time to embarrass the Congress.
The cases may eventually fail but they can be of use to the BJP at election time. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 1, 2017.
Gulf Today
Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought India’s second largest state, Bihar, under his belt last week, 20 months after its voters had decisively rejected his Bharatiya Janata Party in the Assembly elections.
The Constitution provides for change of government through elections. But change of government can also result from realignment of parties in the legislature.
In its heyday, the Congress party had seized power in states on some occasions by engineering defections from other parties. Now Modi does it.
Bihar is the fourth state where the BJP seized power after losing the elections. The others are Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Goa, all comparatively small states.
In Arunachal Pradesh a majority of the Congress legislators broke away and joined first a regional party and then the BJP, making it the ruling party. Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju, who belongs to this state, is credited with masterminding the palace coup.
Though the Congress lost its majority in the Manipur Assembly in this year’s elections, it remained the largest party. But the BJP, which had fewer seats than the Congress, seized power by enlisting the support of the small regional parties. It justified the manoeuvre by pointing out that the electoral verdict was against the Congress, which was in power.
It conveniently overlooked this logic in Goa when it lost its majority in the Goa Assembly. Here, again, the Congress was the largest party but the BJP won the support of regional parties and seized power.
Political manipulations are not the only stock in trade of the BJP which has set its mind on acquiring the dominant position the Congress once held as the party that had spearheaded the freedom struggle.
Soon after Modi took office, government agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is entitled to look into corruption charges against public servants, the Enforcement Directorate, which has the power to investigate money laundering cases, and the Income Tax department, whose mandate is wide enough to track black money transactions, initiated investigations targeted at opposition leaders.
The agencies have not been able to pin any major crime on anyone yet, but reports indicate that some investigations are in an advanced stage. They include allegedly fraudulent transfer of the shares of the National Herald by Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her son and party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, and alleged money laundering by Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union Minister P Chidambaram.
It was a case registered by the CBI against Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav for allegedly accepting bribes for some deals of the time when his father and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad was the Railway Minister that presented Bihar’s Janata Dal (United) Chief Minister Nitish Kumar with the opportunity to break the alliance with the RJD and form a government with the BJP as the partner.
All the indicted leaders have denied the charges and claimed they are victims of political vendetta. Tejaswi Yadav has said he was a 14-year-old kid when he allegedly took bribes.
Nitish Kumar was heading a JD(U)-BJP government when the BJP chose Modi as its prime ministerial candidate. He broke up the coalition citing the communal carnage in Gujarat under Modi’s watch. He justifies his return to the BJP camp saying secularism cannot be a cover for corruption.
It is disingenuous to project the choice before India as one between corruption and communalism, which are not mutually exclusive anyway. Many BJP chief ministers have attracted charges of corruption. Modi himself is no paragon. He parted with a costly suit presented by a diamond merchant only after he was widely criticised for donning it. Several BJP leaders are among those from whom large sums of unaccounted money have been seized.
One of the states now on the BJP radar is Tamil Nadu where two Dravidian parties have alternated in power for four decades. Modi espies an opportunity in the vacuum created there by the death of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa last December. Her All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has split into two. Both factions are vulnerable to pressure from the investigative agencies and both have shown readiness to align with the BJP. Modi is trying to unite them before they align with his party.
The next parliamentary elections are due in 2019. As the poll approaches the investigating agencies may come up with more cases against opposition leaders. There are reports that the BJP is trying to revive the long-dead Bofors scandal of Rajiv Gandhi’s time to embarrass the Congress.
The cases may eventually fail but they can be of use to the BJP at election time. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 1, 2017.
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