Following Naveen Patnaik’s much-hyped Cabinet reshuffle, a crisis of sorts is brewing in the Biju Janata Dal (BJD). Recently, Patnaik has effected a massive reshuffle in his Cabinet and the party to counter the BJP’s surge. But the move seems to be counterproductive as the reshuffle rears serious resentment in the rank and file of the BJD over non-representation of several districts in the ministry.
Even as the Odisha Chief Minister was away in Delhi for an official tour, two BJD leaders have quit the party and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Veteran BJD leader Jayaram Pangi, who was suspended from the party last month, joined the BJP along with hundreds of supporters today in the presence of Union Minister and BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan.
“I was a disciplined member of the BJD. The party did not take 40 seconds to spoil my efforts of 40 years,” Pangi said at the BJP state headquarters in Bhubaneswar while accepting the BJP membership.
“Respecting the party and its leaders, I have joined BJP,” the tribal strongman said. “The BJD is doing exactly the opposite of what Biju Babu dreamt about Odisha,” the former Koraput MP said.
Yesterday, Amar Nayak, another BJD leader ahd joined the BJP in the presence of Pradhan. Nayak, a strong grassroot leader, belongs to Barchanana Assembly constituency of the politically hot Jajpur, the costal district which didn’t get any representation in Patnaik’s recent Cabinet reshuffle.
Meanwhile, senior BJD leader and Lok Sabha MP Baijayant Panda tweeted:
One gone yesterday, another today. Yet when i cautioned last week, was contradicted. Now large sections unrepresented, resentment everywhr ?
Panda is known for his plain speak. Earlier in March, the articulate Lok Sabha MP, while writing an Op-Ed in the leading daily ‘Samaj’, had asked his party to “introspect before it was too late”.
“Key positions in the party are no longer held by those who struggle for the party and may have given honest feedback, but rather opportunist from various fields, including those who had worked against the BJD,” Panda had written.
Post-Panchayat elections, there has been a huge outflow of workers and leaders from the BJD to the BJP. Reports suggest that a number of senior leaders of BJD are waiting to join the BJP in the run up to the 2019 elections.
In the last Pachayat elections, the BJP succeeded in making a giant stride in Odisha politics, leaving Naveen Patnaik’s BJD in a tailspin. Patnaik is staring at a strong anti-incumbency now.
In a development which could completely isolate Pakistan in the South Asian region, Iran has joined India and Afghanistan in ripping into Pakistan for sheltering and exporting terrorism.
Head of the Iranian armed forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri has warned Islamabad that Tehran would hit bases inside Pakistan if it does not confront the Sunni terrorists who carried out the cross-border attacks in Shia-majority country.
The statement came days after ten Iranian border guards were killed by Sunni terror group Jaish-al-Adl, which is sheltered in Pakistan. The terrorists had shot the Iranian guards with long-range guns, fired from inside Pakistan.
Jaish al Adl, a Sunni terror group, which operates from Pakistani soil believe that Shia-majority Iran does not conform to Islam. The terror group is responsible for carrying out several attacks against Iranian security forces in the past. The terror organisation had claimed responsibility for the attacks that killed eight Iranian border guards in 2015 and 14 Iranian border guards in 2013.
“We cannot accept the continuation of this situation,” Major General Baqeri was quoted as saying by Iranian state news agency IRNA.
“We expect the Pakistani officials to control the borders, arrest the terrorists and shut down their bases,” Baqeri said.
Iran has hinted that it might be considering “surgical strikes” on Pakistani terror installations on the lines of India.
“If the terrorist attacks continue, we will hit their safe havens and cells, wherever they are,” the head of Iranian armed forces said.
In September last year, India conducted a surgical strikes on Pakistan’s terror installations in the wake of terror attacks on the Army camp at Uri which claims the lives of 19 Indian soldiers.
In 2014, Iran had warned that it would send troops to Pakistan to retrieve five Iranian border guards kidnapped by Jaish al Adl. Four of the Iranian guards were released a few months later, but one was killed by the terrorists.
Pakistan, which uses terrorism as an instrument of state policy, has been nurturing and paddling terrorism. It is a terror factory which is exporting terrorism in the South Asian region. The entire South Asian region has long been facing the consequence of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.
When Arnab Goswami was at the helm of Times Now, he used to command top ratings. After spending almost a decade working with the Times Group he quit the channel to launch his own venture Republic TV which became fully operational on 6th May.
Maybe out of nervousness or spite, this has resulted in the establishment media almost ganging up to go after Arnab Goswami and his channel.
From calling Republic TV a ‘BJP propaganda outlet’ to casting aspersions on its credibility (while the same media has broken records in producing fake news), the establishment seems to be doing it all.
Today, India Today’s Rahul Kanwal shared a screenshot of a post from a page named “BJP New Delhi” that announced the return of Arnab Goswami with his new channel. Kanwal then proceeded to conclude that Republic TV was 100% biased and was indulging in “Supari Journalism” (a term used by his senior Rajdeep Sardesai often to target Arnab) as the BJP was apparently going all out to promote it:
One party going all out to prop up one TV channel. 100% bias. 0% objectivity. Agenda: Promote the BJP. Fight opposition. Supari journalism! pic.twitter.com/0dhIh5qwB1
This was also picked up Sagarika Ghose who only yesterday was caught in being a party to peddling fake news and a so-called journalist who had tried to defame Indian army by peddling fake pics and recently supported a murderous troll who celebrated massacre of CRPF jawans:
Many will be tempted to troll Mr Kanwal and say “what about…”. Don’t. He’s absolutely correct. This is party-media nexus at its most naked https://t.co/TBLlawSwIX
As it turned out, there was a slight issue with the source cited by Rahul Kanwal. BJP spokespersons [1][2] were quick to point out that the page which Rahul Kanwal was quoting had no affiliation with the party and was an unofficial Facebook page. The Facebook page in question too clarified its About Us section to explicitly state that it was a Fan Page of BJP New Delhi.
Verifying this fact might not have been a difficult task for Rahul Kanwal as just typing BJP Delhi in the Facebook’s search box leads one to the official verified page of BJP Delhi, which had no such ‘welcome’ message to Arnab Goswami or his channel.
Such a witch hunt against the Republic TV and Arnab by the establishment media has become commonplace since the channel launched 3 days ago.
Here are a few such instances of journalists aligned with the Congress and Left ecosystem not hiding their propaganda (where they turned blind eye towards Lalu-Shahabuddin nexus just to bash Arnab):
Level of co-ordination between BJP party functionaries/allies and their new, paid-for in-house “news” channel on full display today
Things turned ugly today when this journalist-politician ecosystem tried to malign even private citizens by branding them BJP workers having access to Republic TV’s inner workings in their attempt to discredit Arnab Goswami.
One such case was related to author and entrepreneur Nupur Sharma, who is now considering legal action for being subjected to calumny and lies:
Proof of me being informed by twitterati and SS displaying Sunanda murder tapes ticker at 6:06 PM. Retract or face legal action @plato_newspic.twitter.com/mfegtZVlkh
It would be an understatement to say that the past few days have been eventful for AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal. On Sunday, erstwhile AAP minister Kapil Mishra had claimed to have seen Kejriwal taking Rs 2 crores in cash from Delhi’s Health Minister Satyender Jain.
Going a step further, Mishra made another claim that Kejriwal and a few of his associates had delayed and influenced the investigation into the Rs 400 crore tanker scam which was allegedly overseen by ex-CM Sheila Dikshit.
Mishra though seems to be in no mood to stop and on Tuesday put out a dramatic open letter to Kejriwal which was full of emotionally charged rhetoric. Mishra proclaimed Kejriwal as his guru and claimed that he was going to file an FIR against him. He called his battle against Kejriwal the biggest of his life and sought the blessings of Kejriwal so that he (Mishra) may emerge victorious.
Mishra then proceeded to equate himself with Arjun’s son Abhimanyu and claimed that his mission was to break the “Chakraviyu” of Kejriwal’s lies, deceit and corruption.
Mishra also claimed that Kejriwal was planning on disqualifying him as an MLA. He claimed that he was ready to resign as an MLA and proceeded to challenge Kejriwal to contest elections against him at the seat of his (Kejriwal’s) choice.
Mishra also claimed that he had received about 211 complaints of corruption against the AAP and the Delhi government after he shared an email address with the public.
If Kapil Mishra isn’t a handful for Kejriwal and co, they are facing a major challenge on the financial front as well albeit due to their own actions. OpIndia in the past had analysed various advertisements issued all over India by the Delhi Government vis a vis the Supreme Court Order in 2016. We believed that they could be in contravention of SC orders.
This year the Aam Aadmi Party was indeed found to be in violation of that and was asked to pay back Rs 97 crores to the state exchequer. The new Lieutenant Governor (L-G) of Delhi had ordered the party to pay from their own packets.
AAP then decided to to challenge the L-G’s order before the Delhi High Court. AAP in its plea sought quashing of the demand notice issued on March 30 by the Delhi government’s Department of Information and Publicity (DIP) on L-G Anil Baijal’s direction to recover the amount from it.
This has prompted the Delhi High Court to seek replies from the Center and the L-G regarding AAP’s plea. A notice has also been issued to Congress leader Ajay Maken, as he was one of the persons who had red flagged the wastage of taxpayers funds.
All this legal wheeling costs money. And as revealed in the past, the party certainly has some expensive tastes when it comes to seeking legal aid. This was evident by the fact that Kejriwal choose to employ the services of top lawyer Ram Jethmalani for fighting the defamation case which was filed against him by Arun Jaitley.
This had resulted in Kejriwal getting billed about Rs 3.22 crores but he and his aides apparently had no intention of paying the amount themselves and it was revealed that AAP was using Delhi taxpayer’s money to pay the bills.
Now when it comes to the Rs 97 crore ad case, the order has been challenged by “AAP” and not the Delhi Government. So legally the party needs to pay all the expenses out of its own funds.
It remains to be seen if it adheres to the rules and coughs up the money or like the last time decides to make certain maneuvers to make the taxpayers’ pocket a bit lighter.
‘SAMADHAN’ can wipe out the Maoist terror. Two weeks after the deadly Maoist attack snuffed out the lives of 25 CRPF personnel, this is what Home Minister Rajnath Singh said yesterday at a review meeting of the states affected by Left-Wing Extremism (LWE).
As he defines ‘SAMADHAN’, S stands for Smart Leadership, A stands for Aggressive Strategy, M stands for Motivation and Training, A stands for Actionable Intelligence, D stands for Dashboard Based Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Key Result Areas (KRAs), H stands for Harnessing Technology, A stands for Action plan for each threat, N stands for No access to Financing.
देश में वामपंथी उग्रवाद की समस्या का निदान किसी Silver Bullet से संभव नहीं है. उसके समाधान के लिए ‘SAMADHAN’ चाहिए pic.twitter.com/65vRln2BcY
Chief Ministers of ten Maoist affected states, Director General of Police of the Maoist infested states, District Magistrates and Superintendents of Police of 35 worst-hit Maoist-affected districts, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Director of Intelligence Bureau and paramilitary forces and intelligence agencies attended the meeting.
e have many such meetings in the past. Therefore only the meetings or new acronyms can’t solve the intractable menace, provided every minutes of meeting be converted into actions. Currently, this is what is being planned:
Integrated strategy
The Home Minister stressed on an integrated strategy, emphasised on “unity of purpose” and spoke of a unified coordination and command to counter the Maoism.
“Along with strategic command, unified command is required at the operational and tactical level, besides intelligence sharing which was equally important,” Singh said.
“We have to bring aggression in our policy, there should be aggression in our thinking, aggression in our strategy, aggression in the deployment of security forces, aggression in operations, aggression in bringing development, aggression in road construction. We will have to be cautious that extremely defensive deployment may result in reduction of operational offensive,” he said.
The Home Minister said the states take the ownership in the anti-Maoist operations where Central Armed Police Force will cooperate fully. But, how many lives of CRPF personnel are lost before we have a single command for anti-Maoist operations across state borders?
Choking finances
In a much needed approach, the Centre is planning to choke the supply of funds to Maoists. A study by Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses estimated that the annual fund raising of the CPI (Maoist) through means such as extortion is a whopping Rs 140 crore annually.
The Maoists raise funds through donations, levy and extortions. No wonder, after the demonetisation drive in November last year, the Maoist funding suffered a severe setback. But, meanwhile, they have cultivated new source of funding. The Centre has identified illegal mining, poppy cultivation and extortion among the activities funding the Maoists.
“Economic resources play an important role in any war. Therefore, choking the financial resources of the left wing extremists is the most basic mantra in this fight,” the Home Minister said.
Maoist violence: Situation improving?
As many as 12,000 citizens had lost their lives in Maoist violence over the last two decades and of these, 2,700 are security personnel and 9,300 are civilians. The list of Maoist attacks is long.
On March 11 this year, the Maoists killed 12 CRPF personnel in the Sukma district of Chhattisgarh. In May 2013, the Maoists had attacked a Congress convey in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh, killing 25 Congress leaders. Senior Congress leader Mahendra Karma, the founder of Salwa Judum (a vigilante movement against Maoists), and former Union Minister Vidya Charan Shukla were among those killed. In April 2010, 75 CRPF personnel were killed in a Maoist ambush in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh. In February 2010, the Maoists killed 24 personnel of the Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) in West Bengal’s West Midnapore district. The EFR personnel were in their sleep when the attack happened.
Several such attacks took place in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra in the past.
Arguably, since 2014, there is a decline in Maoist attacks, decrease in the killing of security forces, decline in civilian casualty and increase in number of Maoists killed. Available data points to the fact.
Source: Home Ministry
Source: Home Ministry [pdf]Earlier, there were 106 districts affected by Maoism. It has come down to 68 now. However, there is a long way to go.
The final battle
It is time the nation drew the final battle lines in the war against the Maoists. It is time India fought and won its last battle against the Maoists. There are two ways, the state can fight the war and the both should go in tandem.
One, the government must expedite its development push in the Maoist infested areas. The Maoists, who look for safe sanctuaries to run their activities, are scared of development because they use lack of development as a facade to exploit the innocent tribals and carry out their activities. Once, development reaches deep into the Maoist hinterland, the Left ultra will finally lose their constituency.
The government is precisely working towards it. The Union Home Ministry has given a go ahead for the construction of a whopping 5,412 km-long road connecting 44 Maoist-affected districts in nine states – Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Bengal and MP. In addition, reports suggest that 2,178 mobile towers of 2,199 built are already operational in the red corridor.
Second and the most crucial and urgent means to fight the Maoist menace is the state must go for an all out war and crush the Maoist terrorists ruthlessly.
Maoists are terrorists and there should not be any further debate about it. There is no difference between the Maoists and their Islamic counterparts in Pakistan. In fact, well-known global intelligence company Stratfor had revealed that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) forged an alliance with the Maoists in a bid to destabilise the Indian state.
The Maoists are waging a war against the nation. They are a brute bunch of anti-nationals out to break India. They mock at the Constitution of India. They seek to destroy our republic, the fabric of our democracy and our rule of law.
The Leftist jholawallah noise notwithstanding, it is time to show no mercy to Maoists. Like their Islamist counterpart in Pakistan, Maoists only understand the language of bullets, bombs and drones. India must win the war against Maoists.
In what appears to be an attempt to portray that gau-rakshaks (cow vigilantes) are running amok in Uttar Pradesh without any fear of law, Pallavi Ghosh, a journalist with news channel CNN-News18 today tweeted about an alleged incident from UP wherein a woman was apparently gang-raped for eating beef:
Shocking stories from UP : woman gang raped for eating beef !
The tweet did not provide any other details about the alleged incident e.g. when and where in UP it happened. The journalist did not post any follow up tweet providing more details. The news channel where she works as a senior political editor also did not report any incident of gang-rape form UP today.
By evening, Uttar Prades Police took cognizance of her tweet, investigated about the alleged incident and clarified on Twitter that the said incident was “fictional”:
However even after getting caught for spreading lies, the journalist did not delete her tweet or re-tweet the clarification by UP Police so that her Twitter followers know about the truth. Instead she insinuated that UP Police endorsed ‘abuse’ directed towards her:
@HarryP2424@Uppolice And how’s that ? @Uppolice if you say it didn’t happen I will accept it but he abuses on twitter is something u shldnt endorse either
The conduct of the journalist shocked common people as she showed no remorse, and rather went on to accuse UP Police. People demanded that she be booked for spreading lies and communal disharmony.
It appears that the journalist picked up bits of her lie from a tweet by another TV journalist named Sagarika Ghose, who had posted a similar tweet yesterday. Sagarika had tweeted a link to a report dated 12 September 2016 in an website named The Independent about an alleged incident of gang-rape in Mewat, Haryana. The said report had quoted another NDTV report, in which the victims of the alleged gang-rape had said that they were raped for eating beef:
However, even back then Haryana police had debunked the beef angle just a day later, i.e. on 13 September 2016.
Why Sagarika tweeted about the incident 8 months later even though the ‘beef’ part of the story is suspect, is a mystery. Similar to Pallavi Ghosh, Sagarika also did not provide any context or clarification. Neither did she clarify that the beef angle was debunked by the police.
These two tweets beg the question whether this is plain incompetence of our some journalists to do basic fact-check before tweeting, or it is part of a larger propaganda to flare communal tensions in the country.
On Twitter, this particular news article flashed on my timeline – RSS-Linked Organisation Promises Couples Customised, Fair ‘Super Babies’ – it was published on a website called The Wire. People were already making snide comments about RSS, and Hinduism in general, based on the headline.
Such headlines have become so commonplace, and uniformly misleading when it comes to any organisation or event or practice that is purportedly linked to ‘Hindutva’ – even if its merely about traditional healthcare practices without any religious component per se.
So normally one just sighs and ignores them. But once in a while curiosity is piqued, and you decide to do a little deeper digging to find out if things are actually as bad as they sound. And that’s what I did in this case.
I started with reading the The Wire article in detail, and realised that it was merely a re-hash of an NDTV report and an Indian Express article with zero value addition. I went through both of those too, but didn’t find any additional facts (or claims) – it seemed the Wire had done a good job of copying the essentials faithfully.
The essence of the story was that Arogya Bharti, the “medical wing” of the RSS, has been allowed by the Calcutta Hight Court to “carry out a programme on how to conceive children that would be tall and fair provided it adhered to strict conditions.” This was preceded by pointed out that such aspirations pointed to the racial mindsets (of the conducting organisation and attending parents, one presumes).
Then I started digging. And found the following:-
Neither the websites of RSS, nor of the conducting organisations Arogya Bharti and Garbh Vigyan mentions any direct link between them, let alone of Arogya Bharti being the “medical wing” of the RSS.
RSS annual report also doesn’t mention the activities of either of these organisations.
“Contact Us” pages of both the organisations had mobile numbers left on them. To be doubly sure, I called up on both the numbers, and I was told the same thing (Remember, this is something the “journalists” of the aforementioned publications should have done). Neither of these organisations has any official connection to the RSS.
Dr. Ramesh Gautam, National General Secretary of the Arogya Bharti, honestly conceded that his ideology might match that of the RSS, but there were no financial, managerial, or operational linkages with the RSS whatsoever. “Ours is an autonomous organisation,” he clarified.
Further, he flatly denied that there was any attempt to get ‘taller and fairer’ babies for the Indian parents. Referring to his ideology that won’t allow him to indulge in something like that, he argued, “We worship a dark Krishna and a short Vamana, so how can we think that being dark or short is a handicap?”
He said that the workshop, allowed by the High Court, was only about educating the expecting mothers and families about various activities that can help them have a healthy and gifted child, and was not at all about ‘tall and fair’ children as has been wrongly claimed in the headlines.
Again, assuming that calling up a few people is too much of a work for modern day journalists, let’s go back to the websites. The Garbh Vigyan Kendra website describes the process as involving prenatal diet, yoga, music, behavioural and thinking process for a healthy pregnancy and child. Specific advantages of the program as quoted on its the website are –
What the website promises to the expecting parents
You can see that there is NO mention of promising prospective “dark-skinned” parents who undergo its workshop and procedures “babies … with fair complexion” or of the babies being “tall” as a result of the program, as was claimed in the articles by the mainstream media publications. So where did this thing come from? The Indian Express quoted someone from Arogya Bharti, which is in conflict with what I was told on phone by the General Secretary of the organisation.
Therefore in a few minutes and after a couple of phone calls, I could figure out that the headline was grossly misleading (I am still giving benefit of doubt to the Indian Express reporter that the quote was not invented, but we know that the media is fully capable of fabricating quotes), the “RSS-link” was tenuous at best (they just share the ideology), and the organisation isn’t the’Medical Wing’ of RSS as reported.
I still wondered whether such a program of prenatal care, involving a spiritual component in addition to the usual dietary and physical ones, was unique to this organisation and thus it was found to be so sensational? So I decided to undertake some further research.
And I found multiple programs from other countries which talk about similar pre-natal programs essentially involving spiritual and physical well-being of the mother during the pregnancy for ensuring a healthier baby, including one being run by the University of Minnesota. There were others from countries like Australia, Canada and South Africa.
So I concluded that anything with even a faint whiff of ‘saffron’ about it has become a taboo for certain sections, to the extent that even innocuous healthcare programs are being deliberately demonised and projected as part of some grand design to turn the country into a nazi-like racist state.
I wonder where it will all lead to.
But on my part, it has made me completely sceptical and unbelieving of anything I read unless I do my own digging and checking – especially when it comes to RSS or any organisation with alleged connections to it. And the result has been opposite of that presumably intended – instead of developing a fear and distrust for such organisations, I am growing to admire the multitude of service they seem to be doing.
This has come as a huge setback to Lalu Prasad Yadav. The Supreme Court on earlier today revived criminal conspiracy charges against the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief in fodder scam cases. Prasad will be tried separately in each of the four fodder scam cases. The judgement will have big impact on Bihar politics.
The Supreme Court order came at a time when Lalu Prasad is already in a tight spot after he was shown in an audio conversation with Mohammad Shahabuddin. In the audio tape, aired on Republic TV, the mafia don is heard passing on instructions to the RJD chief from the comfort zone of the jail.
The fodder scam dates back to the year 1996 when Lalu Prasad was the Chief Minister of the undivided Bihar. The case in which the top court gave its judgement pertains to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 96 lakhs from Chaibasa (now in Jharkhand) treasury during his chief ministerial tenure. This was part of the whopping Rs 900 crores fraudulent withdrawals from Bihar government exchequer by showing fake purchase of fodder for cattle. Former Bihar Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra and former state chief secretary Sajal Chakraborty are among 43 accused in the scam.
A two-judge Supreme Court Bench comprising of Justices Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy directed the trial court to complete the proceedings against Yadav and others within a stipulated nine-month period. The Supreme Court Bench held that for each offence there will be a separate trial.
In September 2013, a special CBI court in Ranchi had sentenced Lalu Prasad to five years imprisonment in connection with one of the cases in fodder scam. With that order, Lalu lost his Lok Sabha membership and was barred from contesting elections for six years. In November, 2014, Jharkhand High Court dropped conspiracy charges against Lalu Prasad.
While setting aside the 2014 Jharkhand High Court order, the Supreme Court today said that the High Court should have been consistent in its findings and not have given different views for different sets of accused in a case. The Apex court also pulled up the CBI for delay in filing the appeal against the High Court order in the case.
Of the 55 cases filed in connection with the fodder scam, Lalu Prasad is an accused in five cases. The cases are at their various stages of trail. Lalu is facing simultaneous trails for fraudulent withdrawal – from Chaibasa treasury, Bhagalpur treasury, Doranda treasury, Dumka treasury, Deoghar treasury – for fake fodder purchase during his tenure as the Bihar Chief Minister.
Apart from accusing Arvind Kejriwal of having received a Rs 2 crores bribe for settling a land deal for Kejriwal’s relative, the Delhi Chief Minister is facing another serious allegation of going slow on the probe into the Rs 400 crore Delhi water tanker scam, which allegedly took place during the Sheila Dikshit regime.
What is this ‘tanker scam’ all about:
The alleged scam dates back to 2012 when Sheila Dikshit was the Chief Minister of Delhi and also the Chairman of Delhi Jal Board. The Delhi Jal Board had awarded tenders for hiring 385 GPS-enabled stainless steel water tankers from private companies to supply water in the areas which lacked regular piped water supply.
All the findings, which are now in the public domain are chiefly as a result of the Delhi Government constituting a 5 member fact-finding committee in June 2015 headed by then Delhi Water Minister Kapil Mishra. The committee submitted a report regarding the scam in August 2015.
According to the report, the whole process of awarding tenders for hiring water tankers was dodgy. The irregularities were so prevalent that they had resulted in a loss of about Rs 400 crores to the public exchequer.
Of the many irregularities pointed out in the report, those which stand out are:
Tender being awarded to a private company despite “exorbitantly higher rates”
Appointment of a consultant arbitrarily on a nomination basis causing a loss of Rs 36.5 crores
As per norms, tender of one company was rejected on the ground that it was the only applicant, but work was later awarded to another company on the basis of a single tender.
There are also allegations that the Sheila Dikshit government had created an artificial water crisis in some parts of Delhi in order to benefit the ‘tanker mafia’.
The Kapil Mishra-led fact finding Committee had recommended an FIR against Sheila Dikshit and a probe by the CBI and the ACB into the scam.
Things went surprisingly dormant after that and almost a year later in mid-June 2016, the AAP government sent the report to the PM and the then Delhi lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung. Jung forwarded the recommendations to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) for appropriate action.
This delay apparently hadn’t gone unnoticed and the leader of opposition in Delhi assembly, Vijender Gupta had written to the Lieutenant-Governor demanding a probe against Kejriwal for suppressing the fact finding committee report, causing inexplicable delay in taking actions and not cancelling the contract for water tankers.
Scam news revived by Kapil Mishra:
6th May:Kapil Mishra was sacked from the post of Water Minister a day after he alleged in a letter to the ACB chief MK Meena that the probe into the matter was going at a snail’s pace.
7th May: Kapil Mishra hurls a bombshell alleging that he was axed from the Delhi Cabinet for his insistence on bringing those involved in the water tanker scam to justice.
8th May:Kapil Mishra submits “proof” to the ACB regarding the Rs 400-crore scam.
Allegations against Kejriwal:
Kapil Mishra has alleged that Kejriwal and his two associates influenced and delayed the investigation into the scam. Now there are reports coming out in the media which claim that Kejriwal had shielded Sheila Diskhit in regards to the scam.
Also one more reason why the probe might have been delayed was the fact that Mishra in 2015 had allegedly written to Kejriwal claiming that the findings about the scam could also spell trouble not only for Sheila Dikshit and co but also for people in the current AAP government.
The family feud in Samajwadi Party is refusing to die down. Last week, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s younger brother Shivpal Yadav announced a new political outfit Samajwadi Secular Morcha to be headed by Mulayam, even though Akhilesh Yadav is the national president of Samajwadi Party. Shivpal is known to not like Akhilesh and has been demanding that Mulayam should be handed back the rein of the party.
Now Mulayam Singh Yadav’s younger daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav too has supported this demand and reminded Akhilesh Yadav that he had promised to give the rein of the party back to Mulayam Singh Yadav after the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, which concluded in March this year where BJP scored a massive victory.
Aparna Yadav too had lost the assembly elections to a BJP candidate, but she was all praise for the new government under Yogi Adityanath. She expressed her opinions in an interview to Dainik Bhaskar.
Aparna, who is the wife of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s younger son Prateek Yadav, praised Yogi for working as a team and in a veiled reference to Akhilesh Yadav’s working, she rued that regional parties ‘work like Hitler’.
“Yogi government is not a one man show. They are taking decisions only after consulting a few people. Whereas everyone has to accept decisions of one man in a regional party,” she was quoted as saying.
She further said that the Yogi government has been doing good work ever since taking over and there was no decision for which she could attack the government. She defended setting up of the ‘Anti-Romeo Squad’ by the government saying it has benefitted women.
“Yogi ji has taken strong action in cases where some wrongs were committed (by the Anti-Romeo Squads),” Aparna Yadav reportedly said.
She even defended the nomenclature saying that while “Romeo” might be a great lover in Shakespearean plays, the term “Roadside Romeo” was also a phrase in English that has different connotation altogether.
Aparna further defended Yogi government putting Samajwadi Party government’s decision under scanner, saying this was ‘routine process’ in every state after regime change.
“When Samajwadi Party came to power, work done by the earlier BSP government was probed, which revealed the money spent on statues and parks,” she reminded.
Aparna Yadav not only praised the Yogi government’s work, she also rubbished theories about BJP winning the assembly elections due to EVM tampering – a charge BSP and Kejriwal are championing, with indirect support from the Samajwadi Party and Congress.
“We lost the elections due to our won deeds,” she said, rejecting the conspiracy theories.
It is to be seen how Akhilesh Yadav reacts to this latest ‘rebel’ in the family. Earlier today, he expelled 5 members of the party who were close to uncle Shivpal Yadav.
