Rahul Gandhi has called Prime Minister Narendra Modi ‘corrupt’ in September 2018. This is not the first time he has done so, in the past he had alleged ‘PM’s personal corruption’ in December 2016 too. That was on a baseless issue of Sahara-Birla dairy entries, in which the Supreme Court dismissed a plea by Prashant Bhushan demanding an inquiry into the matter.
The SC had asked the petitioner to ‘bring better material‘. and refused to order any probe first on 15 December 2016, and then dismissed the matter forever on 11 January 2017 saying ‘loose sheets are not evidence’ after giving the petitioner almost a month to bring ‘better material’. Despite the SC finding no merit in the case on 15 Dec 2016, Rahul Gandhi repeated the same charges till 11 January 2017 at least and went to the extent of demanding the Prime Minister’s resignation on 27 Dec 2016.
Then in September 2018 he again called the Prime Minister a ‘thief’, and alleged a ‘scam’ in the Rafale deal where none exists, or at least, where none has been proven till now, and this issue doesn’t seem to have been taken up even by other Opposition parties other than the Congress. Rahul Gandhi said on 22 Sept 2018 that was he was ‘absolutely convinced‘ that the ‘Prime Minister is corrupt’. Narendra Modi is known as an honest and incorruptible man, and not even the very hostile media which demonized him for 12 years from 2002 to 2014 ever accused him of being personally corrupt.
Rahul Gandhi’s party itself is in a ditch, and he is desperate to make some mud stick on the BJP, especially the Prime Minister. He is also facing a case of financial misdeeds of his own, namely the National Herald case. He hopes that his charges on the Prime Minister will deflect attention from his own case. Twitter duly trended #RahulKaPuraKhandanChor (“Entire family of Rahul is a thief”). But there is already a case where there is foolproof evidence of his party (he and his mother) saving a corrupt man, who had named Sonia Gandhi as being involved in the case on tape!
The CBI was called a ‘Caged Parrot’ by the Supreme Court of India during the UPA regime (May 2004- May 2014). On the UPA’s order, the CBI tried to frame the present BJP chief Amit Shah and Rajasthan ex-Home Minister Gulabchand Kataria. But what had the CBI done on another case with evidence?
Congress leader and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi once split the BJP in Chhattisgarh in December 2001, when he walked away with 12 MLAs through money power when he was Chief Minister. In December 2003 Assembly elections were held for Chhattisgarh state for the first time, and the BJP won a full majority winning 50 out of 90 seats while the Congress unexpectedly lost power, reduced to only 37 out of 90 seats.
Ajit Jogi was said to have promised 75 seats for the Congress to the then party chief Sonia Gandhi. Stunned by the electoral loss, Ajit Jogi as outgoing Chief Minister tried to split the BJP again after losing elections and form the Government. He wrote a letter to the then Governor saying, “Our Congress Party’s all 37 MLAs give their support to a government to be formed under the leadership of Baliram Kashyap, MP. Please give us the chance to form the government”. This letter of Jogi was openly brought out in the media on 6-7 December 2003 and Ajit Jogi admitted that he wrote the letter.
Congress loyalist Outlook weekly itself gave a report of this attempt to grab power by Jogi after losing polls in 2003.
Congress was forced to suspend Ajit Jogi after that immediately. But in March 2004, before the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress brought back the tainted man.
The same day as this letter went out (6-7 December 2003), an audio tape having a conversation between Ajit Jogi and a BJP leader of Chhattisgarh on phone was aired. In that tape, Jogi was talking of giving money to buy BJP MLAs to split the party. Jogi later said that the letter to the Governor was his, but the voice in the tape was not his. But this lie was exposed by the forensic lab report which said that the voice in the tape was indeed of Ajit Jogi. This single lie itself is enough to nail Ajit Jogi. This report shows that the lab said it was Jogi’s voice indeed. But on 4th June 2012, the CBI under UPA said that it cannot prosecute Ajit Jogi and had filed a closure report.
For bribing the MLAs, 45 lakh+ rupees were paid in cash to a BJP leader, directly by Ajit Jogi and his son Amit Jogi. These 45 lakhs were first given to Police and then handed over to the CBI as well on 15 February 2004 as per the Deccan Herald’s report of 16 Feb 2004. The CBI also traced the Bank account from which the money was paid.
Despite this clear evidence the CBI first said in January 2007 that it cannot prosecute Jogi and then again had said and done so in June 2012. But in January 2007, PTI reported that almost everyone in CBI was in favour of prosecuting Ajit Jogi and wanted a chargesheet to be filed against him after the tape was proved to be genuine, but Additional Solicitor General of the UPA Government influenced/pressured/ advised CBI not to do so. As a result of this pressure, the CBI said in May 2008 that there is no law to prosecute Ajit Jogi in this case. [This is the height of farcical excuses, there are many laws, e.g. Prevention of Corruption Act, under which he can be prosecuted.]
In Feb 2006 CNN-IBN reported that apart from having been charge-sheeted in the cash-for-MLAs scam, Jogi has also been named as a co-conspirator in the case of the murder of Chhattisgarh state NCP treasurer Ram Avtar Jaggi in 2003 after two of the several accused turned approver and gave statements in a Chhattisgarh court. Ajit Jogi was ultimately acquitted in the case due to lack of sufficient evidence, but 19 were convicted, which included 4 Congress workers. The then NSUI state President, Ejaz Dhebar’s brother Yahyaha Dhebar was convicted and given life term, as was Chiman Singh, who actually shot Ramavtar Jaggi dead. Singh was a close associate of Ajit Jogi.
Now let us look at the contents of those conversations between Ajit Jogi and the then state BJP Vice-President Virendra Pandey who got the talk recorded and nailed Jogi in December 2003. First are some excerpts of that talk between Jogi and Virendra Pandey carried by a Congress-loyalist weekly Outlook. Virendra Pandey pretended to fall for the bait of Ajit Jogi and got him nailed. Note that this Congress loyalist weekly carefully deletes the reference to Sonia Gandhi in the excerpts. And this tape has been proved to be genuine by the Forensic Lab on 22 Jan 2006.
“The Transcript
Virender Pandey is Chhatisgarh state BJP vice-president. ‘Khunte’ referred to in the conversation is the BJP MP who had defected to the Congress before the (2003) elections. Now, of course, he claims that he was under pressure.
Ajit Jogi: Hello
Virender Pandey: Jogiji, tell me…
Ajit Jogi: Pandeyji I had sent you a message.
Virender Pandey: I received it but some things need to be clarified.
Ajit Jogi: Tell me.
Virender Pandey: First the numbers. You have 37, right?
Ajit Jogi: Take it as 39, two from BSP
Virender Pandey: Have you spoken to them?
Ajit Jogi: Yes
Virender Pandey: So we need to arrange seven more to achieve the figure of 7
Ajit Jogi: The speaker is our man. He will not disqualify them.
Virender Pandey: So they have joined you. Now you’ll have to go to the Governor, it is better if the whole thing is done this evening
Ajit Jogi: True
Virender Pandey: But there is a slight problem. Balli Ram has a great stature in the party, in fact, Bal Thackeray had even called him an uncut diamond. He has such an ability to pull people. So if he leaves, he will be putting his life’s reputation at stake.
Ajit Jogi: That shouldn’t be a problem
Virender Pandey: The other thing we need is a guarantee that they will not withdraw support for five years. So your party should make an announcement that these people are joining us against communal forces, and then they should say which is why we shall not withdraw support. Then we can work out a common minimum programme.
Ajit Jogi: That can be easily done.
Virender Pandey: It’s important because we all know what happened with the Chandrashekhar Government.
Ajit Jogi: Chandrashekhar is a different story, I am Jogi and I shall do what I say.
Virender Pandey: I got a call from Khunte and I spoke to him and told him to think about who are the people who can leave. In his Lok Sabha constituency, there are four people – his son, Bedu Ram Kashyap, Lachchu Kashyap, Mahesh Baghel. These four-five names are doing the rounds, but for the other names, we will need cash, without that nothing happens nowadays.
Ajit Jogi: That will be arranged.
Virender Pandey: We will have to pay them some money in advance, 2 to 4 lakhs right now, today, the rest can be settled later.
Ajit Jogi: That’ll be done.
Virender Pandey: So send 15 – 20 lakhs to me through Khunte, then I shall talk to Balli Ram and then get back but send the money in the next two hours
Ajit Jogi: I shall call Khunte right away. How much? About 15 – 20?
Virender Pandey: Yes about 20 – 25 is enough.
Ajit Jogi: I shall send it, but only if the deal is done.
Virender Pandey: Definitely, only if it comes through, otherwise the money will come back to you.”
Congress loyalist weekly Outlook carefully deleted the reference to Sonia Gandhi in its excerpts published. Here is this reference included in excerpts by another daily The Telegraph. The original tape and full text may have even more. Sonia Gandhi herself gave a statement condemning Ajit Jogi in public claiming ‘high moral ground’ while re-embracing him again within 4 months, and even for many years after January 2006, when the tapes had been proved to be genuine.
Ajit Jogi is a very cunning and a very dangerous man. Note that former BJP chief Bangaru Laxman was convicted and given 4 years imprisonment on a fictitious case, where all the so-called dealers and deals were unreal. If he could be convicted for an imaginary thing, then Jogi can definitely be convicted for this real attempt to split the BJP giving 45 lakh in cash, which was given to CBI and this was second attempt to split the BJP after splitting once in 2001, also through money.
All anti-corruption crusaders like Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev etc should be asked to raise this issue to nail the CBI under UPA and the Congress for trying to let Jogi get away with this. Rahul Gandhi, of course, has no answer and no comments to make on this. He has no comments to make on many other issues of the Jogis, which we will see soon here, and many other issues as well.
And CBI under UPA had ‘evidence’ against Amit Shah and Kataria, but not against Ajit Jogi! What ‘action against corrupt leaders’ by the UPA Government, as Sonia Gandhi had claimed so often! Sonia Gandhi is herself named as someone who gave full approval to this attempt to split the BJP by none other than Ajit Jogi himself in the tape. The use of Sonia’s name was condemned by the Congress, but it re-embraced Ajit Jogi later, who had taken her name.
Congress MP P R Khunte, who was in the BJP till November 2003 and defected to the Congress before the Assembly polls, and was said to be Jogi’s ‘prize catch from the BJP’ and involved in the failed attempt to break the BJP, also said that Congress chief Sonia Gandhi had given her approval to break the BJP in Chhattisgarh, as reported by The Economic Times on 9 December 2003.
Many people believe that the Rahul-Sonia combine had used CBI to fabricate cases against Narendra Modi’s aide Amit Shah and Rajasthan BJP leaders, and used this same CBI to save their ‘blue-eyed boy’ Ajit Jogi and their own skins. Ajit Jogi is also on record saying as Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh that tribals are not Hindus.
This is a blatant case of evidence of corruption, shielding the corrupt, misuse of CBI, etc by Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi was taken into full confidence by Ajit Jogi before his attempt to break the BJP, he confidently said to the person on phone “Do you wish to speak to her? Take this number and call her?” meaning that Sonia Gandhi had given full approval to the buying of BJP MLAs. And then it would seem like Sonia-Rahul combine saved Ajit Jogi in the case. And this Rahul Gandhi has the audacity to call the Prime Minister of the country, Narendra Modi as ‘corrupt’!
The complainant Virendra Pandey had challenged this closure report by the CBI in court. In December 2013, the CBI was ordered to continue probing this case vs Jogi by the court. The efforts of the complainant Virendra Pandey need to be appreciated, while the role of the mainstream media in suppressing this case needs to be condemned by one and all. When the AAP was claiming ‘moral high ground’ and ‘fighting corruption’ in December 2013, it was urged many times to raise this issue of Ajit Jogi being saved by UPA, before the elections in Chhattisgarh in December 2013, but it too kept a stony silence.
Now, dear Mr Rahul Gandhi, will you break your silence on this case?
