As this writer wrote elsewhere, criticising the NDA government under PM Narendra Modi could be considered a grave sin by many in this country who voted for it believing the promises of ache din that the then PM candidate quite ostensibly gave. At a time when the whole country was invariably annoyed at the various corruption scandals that came up against the UPA government, Narendra Modi, a master tactician, effectively sold to the Indian people a dream of a corruption-free, nepotism-free, development-oriented government that would take India to enormous heights. To stroke the passions of the common citizen, Narendra Modi was touted as a future PM who has come up from a very humble background (at a time when the truth remains that all Indian Prime Ministers, with the exception of those from the Nehru-Gandhi clan, have all risen from humble beginnings). However one year into the office, the ruling party and the Modi government are in a soup owing to continuation of ministers with fake degrees as well as allegations of corruption and impropriety.
Of all the leaders in BJP, scandal hit first the most widely respected of them all – Sushma Swaraj. Unlike in the case of other political scandals, the media and even the opposition were very sceptical and calculated in making allegations because they knew that they were pointing their fingers at someone who has had enormous goodwill among political supporters as well as detractors. Ms. Swaraj’s extension of a helping hand to the absconder Lalit Modi in gaining travel papers to travel to Portugal for his wife’s surgery was shown as humanitarian assistance by the government and her party. While the opposition and the media alleged that what she did was an instance of grave impropriety if not illegality and a matter of conflict of interest. One fails to understand why Ms. Swaraj bypassed all governmental procedures of the External Affairs Ministry and spoke directly to Keith Vaz MP of UK to arrange travel documents to Lalit Modi. The whole government machinery was kept in dark by Ms. Swaraj, at a time when both her daughter and husband are part of Lalit Modi’s legal team. Even if for the sake of argument one accepts that Ms. Swaraj helped Modi on humanitarian grounds, as an External Affairs Minister she could have done so many other things to make use of this occasion to bring the absconder back to the country to face the charges (16 of them in total by Enforcement Directorate). She could have asked the British government to give him travel papers for one time visit to Portugal, so that he could have no other option but to return to India after the visit. Instead she allowed the British government to give him travel papers for two long years. The opposition was increasingly training their guns at Ms. Swaraj when she was dubiously saved by the bigger scandal of Vasundhra Raje helping Lalit Modi to stay in UK.
During their investigation on the Lalit Gate, media dug out evidence suggesting that Vasundhra Raje Scindia, the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, had furtively filed an affidavit in an UK court in 2011 favouring Lalit Modi’s immigration application in the UK when she was the Leader of Opposition in Rajasthan Assembly. What made the case more curious was that in the affidavit Ms. Raje had requested the UK court not to make her affidavit known to Indian authorities. Simultaneously the media had also found out that Lalit Modi had diverted some funds from one of his bogus companies in Mauritius to the company owned and run by Dushyant Singh, son of Ms. Raje. This was being considered by many legal experts as a matter of money laundering.
When the BJP was thus engulfed in such scams related to Lalit Modi, it got another blow from a Delhi court as it took cognisance of a complaint that HRD Minister Smriti Irani had given false information about her educational qualification to the Election Commission of India. In many interventions during social media discussions this writer had made the point that it is a matter of absolute shame that India has an Education minister who has faked her education degree. Though the minister as well as her many supporters kept on claiming that one should judge her only by her work and not by her college degrees, what many failed to accept is the fact that it is not the degree or the lack of it that is the major issue, but that she lied on it that should bring out outrage in the country.
The emergence of Vyapam Scam in the state of Madhya Pradesh has shocked the conscience of the nation. Mysterious deaths of 47 persons associated with this scam made news, while the Chief Minister of MP, Shivraj Singh Chauhan of BJP, against whom there are allegation of complicity, claimed innocence. During the initial phase of the scam, where there was calls to transfer the case to CBI, the BJP government in the state resisted it. But when petitions were filed in the Supreme Court, asking for its intervention in transferring the case to CBI, BJP changed their official position and proclaimed that they are ready for it if SC asks them to do so. Like the rest of the nation, SC was also unnerved by the magnitude and enormity of this scandal. The apex court also issued notices on a plea to prosecute MP Governor Ram Naresh Yadav for his alleged complicity in the scam. Even when Mr. Yadav has been named in the FIR, the central government doesn’t think it important to remove him. When BJP was quick to remove many Governors appointed by the erstwhile UPA, it smacks of dubious intent when we find that BJP is quite reluctant to remove the MP Governor, when he is also someone appointed by the UPA government.
At a time when BJP is embroiled in controversy after controversy or ‘scam-a-day’ as the social media likes to call it, what is most conspicuous is the studied silence of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Someone who gained a name as the most eloquent of all political leaders in present day India, Mr. Modi has surprised both his supporters and detractors equally with his silence on these issues facing the nation. At the same time he still goes on merrily in social media by congratulating even many insignificant nations of the world on their independence days, wishing birthdays to many world leaders, sometimes in their own languages and speaking voraciously on many of his pet schemes in his monthly ‘Mann ki Baat’ on Indian radio. Mr. Modi had in the past made fun of Manmohan Singh’s silence by calling him ‘Maunmohan’ Singh, but when he came to power he is closely following his predecessor’s footstep as far as remaining silent on national issues is concerned. By not giving out his ‘mann ki baat’ on national issues he is increasingly losing his sheen as a decisive leader. His blistering eloquence has made way to deafening silence, his defiant rhetoric to uneasy quietude. Now the nation knows that his electoral promise of zero-tolerance to corruption was no more than a gimmick to fool the people and garner their votes.
Political analysts are also remarking that all the corruption and impropriety charges have come up against Narendra Modi’s political rivals in the party, save Smriti Irani, who is a Modi loyalist. So it could well be a ploy hatched by the Modi-gang in the party to politically thwart his critics and buy their silence. Even if it is so, with the emerging facts about large scale corruption and impropriety in the central government and other BJP ruled states, PM Modi’s and his party’s image has received a serious dent, rectifying which would be quite a difficult task.
Image Courtesy: Cartoon 'Politickle' by Manjul
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