BJP's stand on black money and the foul language used by the prime minister of india

The Congress party is clearly getting desperate by the day as it reads the clear writing on the wall that the people of India are not returning it to power. The language of its leaders including the usually cool Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is becoming more and more shrill and intemperate as the election campaign reaches its inevitable end. The Prime Minister has chosen to describe Shri Advaniji's call to bring black money stashed abroad by Indians as an 'election stunt'. He has also alleged that Shri Advani and the BJP were 'behaving irresponsibly' by raking up the black money issue. He has said that BJP's campaign would "alert" those who had stashed this money illegally abroad. And finally, he has accused the BJP of not understanding economics.

We plead guilty to the last charge. The BJP does not understand economics as well as Dr Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi do. At the same time, we would like to assert that even with our limited understanding of economics, the BJP/NDA government managed the economy much better than Dr Singh with his vast understanding of the subject. Even the Economist of London which the Congress party's General Secretary Digvijay Singh quotes with such pride has said in the same article that the NDA government's performance on the economic front was creditable. We would also like to remind the Congress party that quoting foreign sources can be a double edged weapon. If they draw comfort from the Economist, what about Razeen Sally's article in the Financial Times of London in which the economic performance of the UPA government, and specially the role of Dr Manmohan Singh as a ''do-nothing, zero-reform" Prime Minister, has come in for severe criticism? Sally has said "Mr Singh has proved a hopeless decision-maker as prime minister……Mr Rao and A.B. Vajpayee proved their mettle despite heavy political constraints. Mr Singh has failed."

The BJP understands enough economics to realise that the entire global environment today is far more conducive to bringing the black money of Indian's back to India than it ever was earlier. Shri Advaniji has seen this opportunity and grasped this moment. Dr Manmohan Singh refuses to recognise this opportunity and use it for the country's benefit. Nothing exposes this government more on this issue than its own affidavit before the Supreme Court in response to a Public Interest Litigation which has failed to satisfy the Supreme Court.

What can be more ridiculous than the Prime Minister's fear that the BJP's campaign would alert the depositors of the black money and they could withdraw the money? According to its own claim the government has been at it seriously for some time now. Has not that alerted the black money depositors already?

Foul and abusive language cannot be a substitute for sound argument. Having lost the argument, the Congress party and the Prime Minister are resorting to a language which is eminently avoidable even in the heat of electoral battle.

BJP's Stand on Quottrocchi and The Killings of Sikhs in Pakistan by the Taliban

1.    Bharatiya Janata Party deplores the absurd logic of the PM Manmohan Singh that India would have been looked down by the world community if red corner notice against Quatrocchi was not removed. This is a futile attempt to defend the indefensible act of the CBI. This also proves that withdrawal of red corner notice against Quottrocchi is not a CBI decision but a political decision of the UPA government. Instead of proceeding with the investigations UPA government offered Quattrochi a parting gift.

BJP has one poser for the Prime Minister that he should explain why then world community will not look down India when it does not carry out the hanging of Parliament attacker Mohammad Afzal Guru, who is condemned by the Supreme Court?  UPA wants to save Afzal for vote bank politics and Quottrocchi for his connection with the first family of the Congress. Both these decisions have once again proved that "Congress Ka Hath Quottrocchi Aur Afzal Ke Saath".

2.    Bharatiya Janata Party expresses deep concern over the report of killings and fleeing of Hindus and Sikhs from Swath valley by Talibans. BJP demands that Government of India should take proactive steps to save people of Indian origin living in Pakistan. Government utterly failed to protect the people of Indian origin in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere. Efforts by the government so far have remained technical only and have not yielded any tangible results.

BJP's message on the black money of indians in swiss and other banks.

The Congress party is clearly getting desperate by the day as it reads the clear writing on the wall that the people of India are not returning it to power. The language of its leaders including the usually cool Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is becoming more and more shrill and intemperate as the election campaign reaches its inevitable end. The Prime Minister has chosen to describe Shri Advaniji's call to bring black money stashed abroad by Indians as an 'election stunt'. He has also alleged that Shri Advani and the BJP were 'behaving irresponsibly' by raking up the black money issue. He has said that BJP's campaign would "alert" those who had stashed this money illegally abroad. And finally, he has accused the BJP of not understanding economics.

We plead guilty to the last charge. The BJP does not understand economics as well as Dr Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi do. At the same time, we would like to assert that even with our limited understanding of economics, the BJP/NDA government managed the economy much better than Dr Singh with his vast understanding of the subject. Even the Economist of London which the Congress party's General Secretary Digvijay Singh quotes with such pride has said in the same article that the NDA government's performance on the economic front was creditable. We would also like to remind the Congress party that quoting foreign sources can be a double edged weapon. If they draw comfort from the Economist, what about Razeen Sally's article in the Financial Times of London in which the economic performance of the UPA government, and specially the role of Dr Manmohan Singh as a ''do-nothing, zero-reform" Prime Minister, has come in for severe criticism? Sally has said "Mr Singh has proved a hopeless decision-maker as prime minister……Mr Rao and A.B. Vajpayee proved their mettle despite heavy political constraints. Mr Singh has failed."

The BJP understands enough economics to realise that the entire global environment today is far more conducive to bringing the black money of Indian's back to India than it ever was earlier. Shri Advaniji has seen this opportunity and grasped this moment. Dr Manmohan Singh refuses to recognise this opportunity and use it for the country's benefit. Nothing exposes this government more on this issue than its own affidavit before the Supreme Court in response to a Public Interest Litigation which has failed to satisfy the Supreme Court.

What can be more ridiculous than the Prime Minister's fear that the BJP's campaign would alert the depositors of the black money and they could withdraw the money? According to its own claim the government has been at it seriously for some time now. Has not that alerted the black money depositors already?

Foul and abusive language cannot be a substitute for sound argument. Having lost the argument, the Congress party and the Prime Minister are resorting to a language which is eminently avoidable even in the heat of electoral battle.

War room

While Barack Obama is busy formulating an Af-Pak policy, we are busy in melting-point informatics and "my brother Rahul will become PM one day" 

kind of family employment schemes. The Prime Minister "revealed" to a group of journalists that he had decided to resign if the nuclear deal with the US was not passed in Parliament. To fulfil his "kasam" to Washington, he silently saw the lawmakers' highest body turn into a mandi. 

For him, his "kasam" was more important than the "maryada" of his nation's parliament. 

I wish he had honoured in the same way his "kasam" to the Indian people – the oath he took while taking the office of Prime Minister, that bound him to protecting the lives of his people and giving a government that treated all citizens equally. 

Pota was removed to please Muslims. A special reservation scheme was implemented at Aligarh Muslim University to have seats for a particular religious group reserved. 

The Planning Commission allocated Rs 3,000 crore for minority (read Muslim) development schemes and banks were directed to give loans to the minorities at a special consideration. To address Kashmiri Muslim "sentiments", Afzal's hanging was delayed till the next government is formed. Ram Sethu was brutally assaulted and Rama's existence was denied – all before the eyes of Mr Nice and Dr Decent. Not a single word was spoken to address the sentiments of Hindus. 

He kept a studied silence seeing the butchers of 1984 being protected and promoted as party candidates for Lok Sabha elections till a shoe throw compelled the leader to delist them. 

So much for his "kasam" to provide impartial governance. 

The "kasam" to protect the people and safeguard the honour of soldiers was "fulfilled" in such a manner that soldiers returned their war decorations and had to demonstrate like pariahs at Jantar Mantar. The government was busy decorating the liars and voices of terrorists. 

And now, there is a controversy regarding a story sourced to the Special Investigating Tribunal blaming certain NGOs for cooking up ghastly stories of barbarism, which, the report says, never occurred. The person who has been charged having helped file such "cooked up" stories became a darling of the secular media noises in Delhi who would present her stories like a constitutional tribunal's report. 

There is a contradiction which is further confusing as SIT is still silent on it. For the sake of justice and fair play, the truth must be investigated and the honour of the people, whichever side they might belong to, be restored. If the Kausar Bi story was filed truthfully, the criminals must be hanged in public along with the perpetrators of Godhra. But if it was a fabrication, the "writer" must be punished because if a mind can cook up such ghastly scenes, what will be the difference between what Kasab and his gang did in Mumbai and what these pen-pushers of the secular chill club do to India and her people? A writer more known in London wrote a story as spine chilling as was the Godhra fire. It read, "A mob surrounded the house of former Congress MP Iqbal Ehsan Jaffri. His phone calls to the Director-General of Police, the Police Commissioner, the Chief Secretary, the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) were ignored. The mobile police vans around his house did not intervene. The mob broke into the house. They stripped his daughters and burned them alive. Then they beheaded Ehsan Jaffri and dismembered him. Of course it’s only a coincidence that Jaffri was a trenchant critic of Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, during his campaign for the Rajkot Assembly by-election in February.'(Arundhati Roy’s article, Outlook, dated 6 May 2002). 

Ehsaan was killed but the rest of the story was false for which Roy had to apologize. A people traumatized, painted black all over the globe, their character mutilated and just an apology? 

And who were those killed in the Godhra train who never got a line from these "chroniclers of human tragedies"? 

Just waste paper? 

Read what the Union minister of state for home, Shriprakash Jaiswal, who belongs to the Congress, told Parliament on May 11, 2005: "790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed in the riots, 2,548 people were injured and 223 people were missing." 

Who were those killed in Gujarat riots along with Muslims? 

Just dirt? 

The hate-Hindu cartel represents the hate of Ghaznis and Ghauris. They survive on the funds given to them by Congress-Communist groups and state powers controlled by them. Their social acceptability and glamour is enhanced by "praise for each other" societies. And Mr Nice and Dr Decent pats them with state awards. 

Amid cacophony and intemperate language laced with shoe throws, criminals and convicted actors are having a field day canvassing for their parties and though a mature and stable democracy we pretend to be, the first casualty in this situation has been decency in public debate. 

The poll scene has turned the nation into a war room. The last 62 years have witnessed our motherland's vivisection, a million people killed, 1.25 lakh sq km of land illegally occupied by aliens, massacres by Pakistani marauders in Mirpur and in Bihar by Maoist terror outfits, the jeep purchase scandal in 1948, a humiliation like 1962 when ordnance factories were ordered to make coffee machines instead on rifles, the Nagarwala mystery, the submarine scandal, wheat import commissions, farmers' suicides, forced exile of Kashmiri Hindus and desecration of more than 172 temples. The list is ever-growing amid inspiring stories of Indian people’s perseverance and achievements. 

Isn't it time we rose above fault lines, gave a chance to an India that would make every Indian of every denomination, faith, colour and creed an equally proud partner? Can't we think and vote on issues that overpower religious, caste-based and parochial concerns? Will this war room kind of atmosphere result in a decisive mandate? 

Callous Congress, feckless PM

If we lesser mortals were to be found misleading someone intentionally, we would be accused of telling a lie. To be called a liar is as good as being told your integrity quotient is zero. Telling the truth, as we all know, may be difficult but is considered a virtue; telling a lie is sinful, a vice to which the feckless and the irresolute are given. But what about someone who holds high office and misleads the nation in the most casual (some would say sly) manner? Does vice become a virtue when your are the Prime Minister of India? I refer to Mr Manmohan Singh’s comment on Friday in response to a query on the shameful Jagdish Tytler-Sajjan Kumar episode. “I was not informed, not consulted, over the CBI’s clean chit to Jagdish Tytler,” he told members of the Indian Women’s Press Corps whom he hosted for tea.

In this age of lazy journalism it is unlikely anybody will bother to raise a doubt or two about the Prime Minister’s claim. But this needs to be done, if only to expose him for what he is, which is definitely far-removed from what he would like everybody to believe he is. So let’s check out the facts. The CBI, contrary to popular notion, does not report to the Ministry of Home Affairs; it reports to the quaintly named Department of Personnel and Training, otherwise known as ‘DoPT’, which is headed by a Minister of State. The DoPT is part of the portfolio of responsibilities held by the Prime Minister to whom the Minister of State in charge of that department reports. While routine administrative issues are directly dealt with by the Minister of State, he or she keeps the Prime Minister fully informed on sensitive issues, including high profile cases being handled by the CBI. In fact, files related to such cases are routed through the Prime Minister’s Office, which is known to have issued instructions to the CBI on certain occasions — recall the letter written by a senior PMO official, known for his proximity to 10 Janpath, directing the agency to deal with one of the accused in the Ayodhya case in a particular manner. In brief, it is an intimate relationship, never mind the Supreme Court’s directive that the CBI should function as an autonomous agency. It is highly unlikely, and that is putting it mildly, that the CBI would have sought closure of the cases against Tytler without discussing it with the DoPT, which in effect means the PMO. In other words, Mr Singh would have been aware of the CBI’s move.

Even if he were blissfully ignorant of it, surely Mr Singh reads newspapers and watches 24x7 news channels, at least those which don’t tire of extolling his ‘abilities’, such as they are. The CBI submitted its closure report to the trial court on April 2. The story was prominently published by every newspaper and found more than passing mention on prime time news. On April 7, when Jarnail Singh, a reporter with the Dainik Jagran, apparently upset over Mr P Chidambaram’s rude response to his questions on the Government giving Tytler and Kumar a clean chit despite the evidence — by way of affidavits, submissions and eyewitness accounts — of their role in the horrendous bloodletting of 1984 when 4,733 Sikhs were massacred after Mrs Indira Gandhi’s assassination, hurled one of his shoes at the Home Minister. It is only then that the Congress got into the act. Between April 2 and April 7, for full five days the Prime Minister did nothing, although he obviously knew about it, if not through the DoPT then from media reports.

For Mr Singh to now say “I was not informed, not consulted” is more than astounding. But there’s a pattern to his denying any knowledge about the actions of the CBI and pretending great surprise every time the Government has been caught on the wrong foot. When the CBI manipulated the de-freezing of two London bank accounts where Ottavio Quattrocchi is believed to have parked his share of the Bofors payola, thus helping the Italian wheeler-dealer who is a fugitive from Indian law to grab the money and run, similar lack of knowledge was proclaimed. Indeed, the Prime Minister has rarely been upfront; on the contrary, effortlessly and with great ease, he has excelled in slyly misleading the nation time and again, as he did most stunningly on the India-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement. 

In his memoirs, A Prattler’s Tale, economist Ashok Mitra is ruthlessly honest in his description of Mr Singh: “His timidity is the product of his civil servant’s mind, which many mistake as humility.” He also recounts an incident from his days as a member of the Rajya Sabha when Mr Singh was the Union Finance Minister. At a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to the Ministry of Finance, Mr Mitra wanted the Government to supply copies of an RBI report listing the identities of individuals and corporates who owed more than a crore of rupees in unpaid bank loans adding up to more than Rs 50,000 crore. “The Finance Minister (Mr Singh) had a quick consultation with the Finance Secretary, who was sitting next to him, and agreed to place copies of the report before the members (of the committee)... Then the fun started. Days went by, then weeks, followed by a full month, but we did not receive copies of the report. I wrote to the Finance Minister but there was no reply from him. I sent him another letter... the silence was unbroken. At the next meeting of the committee, I hit the roof. Manmohan, however, was unfazed. He feigned surprise, ‘What, did I really make such a promise? I do not remember. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding’.” Mr Mitra has other stories to tell about our economist Prime Minister, but since he hasn’t committed them to paper, I shan’t either.

But Mr Singh’s proclivity to mislead others is not the only trait that raises discomfiting questions about India’s ‘accidental Prime Minister’. Nor should we needlessly cavil about his fake humility. What is relevant is his, to quote Mr Mitra, “lamb-like devotion” to the Nehru-Gandhi family, his “worshipful frame of mind”. It is this which prompts him to behave in the most craven manner, heaping treacly praise on the person who wields the authority of the office he holds, and which sets him apart from his senior colleagues like Mr Pranab Mukherjee. “Obviously the decision (to field Tytler and Kumar as candidates for the Lok Sabha election from Delhi constituencies) was reversed. It shows the Congress party’s sensitivity towards the Sikh community and for this you should compliment the Congress party,” he told members of the Indian Women’s Press Corps during his Friday’s interaction. Everybody knows that the decision was reversed by the Congress president. So the praise he solicits is not for the party but its president. As for ‘sensitivity towards the Sikh community’, had Mr Singh’s assertion been true, he would not have allowed the CBI to do something so reprehensible. But that would have required courage and integrity.

Gujarat Fake Encounter Case - Lopsided Morality exposes Political Bias

According to an affidavit filed by DIG CID Rajnish Rai in the Supreme Court, more arrests are soon likely in the fake encounter case in Gujarat. In a startling confession, Gujarat government on Monday told the Supreme Court that Kausar Bi, wife of fake encounter victim Sohrabuddin Sheikh was killed by being burnt to death. In a new twist to row over the killing of Soharabuddin Sheikh in a fake encounter, a senior police officer today said the Gujarat police had tried to cover it up in 2006 by not taking cognizance of recommendation for a CID probe into it after the victim’s brother filed a case. Three IPS officers, including one from Rajasthan, were arrested on April 23 after a CID (crime) probe revealed that Sohrabuddin was killed in a fake encounter by a team of Gujarat and Rajasthan Police. The three officers - D G Vanjhara (DIG border range), Rajkumar Pandiyan (SP intelligence bureau) and Dineshkumar M N (SP Alwar, Rajasthan) are in the custody of CID. The media has been casting aspersions on Minister of State for Home Amit Shah, known to be close to one of the arrested officers D G Vanjhara for being linked to the cover up.

Offstumped examines the reportage on this issue in the mainstream media to expose the lopsided morality and political bias underlying it.

First to gain a perspective on the issue of fake encounters and custodial deaths, Offstumped turned to the National Human Rights Commission, that tax payer funded conscience keeper for the nation.

The NHRC for all its activism in keeping the citizens (its sponsors) informed about how its managing their collective conscience has been rather slack in releasing its annual reports. The last report available online is for 2004-2005, nevertheless it makes for interesting reading. The report amongst other things covers custodial deaths and encounters.

As regards the deaths which occurred in the police custody in the course of the year 2004-2005, the report indicated that there was a noticeable decline in such cases vis-à-vis the previous year in the States of Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Rajasthan,Tamilnadu and West Bengal. There was, however, an increase in the deaths in police custody n the States of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Orissa, Delhi, Jharkhand and Uttranchal.

Well thats something the mainstream media will not bother to tell you. Now the present media outrage is all about encounters so let us look at what the NHRC has to say about encounters.

122 intimations were received from the various State Governments about killings in encounters during the year 2004-2005. These included 66 such intimations from the State of Uttar Pradesh, 18 intimations from Andhra Pradesh, 9 from Delhi and 5 each from Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Separately, the Commission also received 84 complaints about alleged killings in fake encounters.

Here is another interesting statistic from NHRC on fake encounter cases disposed during 2004-2005. Gujarat had just 1 fake encounter case while congress ruled AP had 5, SP ruled UP had 54, congress ruled Haryana had 4. While Gujarat only 5 encounter cases pending, Congress ruled AP had 21, Congress ruled Maharashtra had 29, SP ruled UP had 175, the National Capital Delhi had 18 despite Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh at the helm and Congress ruled Uttaranchal had 14.

So when one sees the head over heels moral outrage in the mainstream media over the Gujarat Fake encounter case, one is left bewildered over why the media has its conscience pouring all over its newsprint over a hardened criminal when far many more cases in other states presumably many involving innocent law abiding citizens are pending.

Looking at all this outrage one is forced to ask the question - what moral underpinnings does this outrage stem from ? Is it about what ails Criminal Justice ? Is it about why our law enforcement has lost faith in the Judicial System that it tends to find violent and murderous solutions outside the ambit of law ? Is it about why there are such a large number of encounters and fake encounters in some specific states ? Or is it about how Criminal Justice and Law enforcement are so easily prone to political pressures that they tend to be misused for political purposes ?

If the outrage over Sohrabuddin’s fake encounter death was secular and moral it would be asking all of the above questions. It would have focused the debate on the widespread secular nature of this malaise that afflcits our law enforcement and criminal justice system. But then thats not what the public debate on Soharbuddin has been about. It has instead been about how a Muslim man and his wife were wronged by the Police in BJP’s Narendra Modi ruled Gujarat. Nothing exemplifies the media’s hollow morality and political bias than this comment by congress hack Pankaj Vohra in the Hindustan Times

Sheikh’s death is another case of the Modi government’s high-handedness. Thankfully, the country has a good judicial system and it will never allow fascist designs to succeed. Recent incidents and especially those concerning Gujarat have shown beyond doubt that the BJP is losing its moral fibre slowly and surely

Mr. Vohra conveninently ingnores that YSR’s Andhra and Vilasrao Deshmukh’s Maharashtra are far ahead by leaps and bounds on the NHRC’s scale of high handedness and fascism. So what then of the Congress’ moral fibre or is that it never had one to begin with !

Sohrabuddin was a hardened criminal and the fact remains that he got more justice in his death than he probably ever dealt to his many victims in life. By framing the public debate on his religion the media stands guilty of communalization doing little to either Human Rights or to Secularism.