Bharat Rakshak

Vajpayee's son-in-law puts BJP in a fix


NEW DELHI: For the teflon-coated Atal Bihari Vajpayee, son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya is proving to be the soft underbelly, with the young entrepreneur's name figuring for the second time in two months in headline controversies on political wheeling-dealing.

BJP was left confounded when the incendiary US cables on the trust vote accusing bribery mentioned Bhattacharya as the man who could split the party if the Congress so wanted. Only weeks ago, he was a prominent voice on Radia tapes, purportedly fixing Cabinet formation in rival Congress regime.

Both the sting-ops show the lingering influence of Bhattacharya years after Vajpayee has stepped into the political sunset. Though his name was always mentioned openly during the saffron regimes from 1998-2004, the two leaked tapes and cables show him in not so flattering light and have the potential to embarrass him among the followers of his famous father-in-law.

The US cables say that Congress MP Satish Sharma was looking at Bhattacharya to use his links and divide the BJP ranks. While the truth of the claims is a secret never to be known, the man once seen as the key to Vajpayee does come across as a political freelancer whom even the BJP rivals see as an asset.

The belief gains ground when the cable leak is seen in conjunction with the Radia tapes where he is offering his help to speak to the highest quarters in Congress to find out the fate of certain individuals in Cabinet formation, as also to convey messages to Congress.

Observers say Bhattacharya was definitely seen by Congress as a man they could use to work on the BJP. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sought the help of a key Vajpayee aide who is close to Bhattacharya — former security czar Brajesh Mishra — to influence BJP. He did oblige by speaking for the nuke deal. Mishra was given Padma Vibhushan this year. Not that the shocks actually would surprise insiders.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 732089.cms

Sushupti wrote:

ABV did what his dharma dictated.

As a PM or as person who was liked by Nehru?

ramana wrote:Munna, Even in 1999 if it was the INC in charge and the tables were reversed they would throw the BJP leaders in jail and throw away the key. They might even give evidence so they get locked up in foreign jails. (S.C. Bose)

Dont justify gullibility and delusion as raja dharma.

Ramanaji NDA and ABV tried and failed to make India an independent pole in world.

Sushupti wrote:Issue is not the dreams of ABV but his loyalty to dynasty over the party(and its ideology) which made him PM.

Lessons have been learnt and will be applied.

I vehmently oppose calling Vajpayee and Brijesh types as some sellouts

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday broke his silence over the United States diplomatic cables accusing the United Progressive Alliance led by him of purchasing the votes of Members of Parliament for the Trust Vote over the Indo-US nuclear agreement in 2008.

The PM insisted that he had "not authorised anybody" to purchase votes nor was he involved in any such "transactions".

"I think, people who are affected by them (Wikileaks expose), they have already commented on them, casting serious doubts about the veracity of allegations made in these diplomatic despatches," Dr Singh said while commenting on the Wikileaks expose.

"I have no knowledge of any such purchases and I am absolutely categorical, I have not authorised anyone to purchase any votes. I am not aware of any acts of purchase of votes," he said while replying to questions at the India Today Summit.

"I am absolutely certain in asserting that I am not at all, I think, involved in any of these transactions," the prime minister insisted.

His response, however, did not categorically clarify whether or not the purchases took place at all before the Trust Vote on July 22, 2008.

Sushupti wrote:

I vehmently oppose calling Vajpayee and Brijesh types as some sellouts

I never called them sellouts. "Right man in wrong party" yes, but not sellout.

Independently, Mr. Sharma told the Political Counselor “that PM Singh and others were trying to work on the Akali Dal (8 votes) through financier Sant Chatwal and others, but unfortunately it did not work out.”

Reasons to despair

18 March 2011: How does the UPA leadership get away duping the country time after time, with the story repeated with the new Wikileaks? Here are some reasons:
Splitting the spoils is the new UPA "coalition dharma". Every coalition partner in the UPA government is permitted its share of corruption, with a portion allocated for the main ruling party.
Don't imagine only the DMK is involved in the 2G loot. But it is the first scapegoat when corruption charges smash the UPA.
It leaves the lead Congress party relatively insulated and it can use investigating agencies like the CBI to arm-twist allies for more assembly seats.
So far, it has been win-win for the Congress. But it could boomerang.
Bureaucratizing corruption: Nearly every top bureaucratic appointment in the UPA government comes with a price. The price is to assist the ruling dispensation with the plunder.
The idea behind making P.J.Thomas CVC was to institutionalize and systematize corruption. The advantage of using the bureaucracy is that the corruption process can be kept relatively banal, low-key, and triple-wrapped in procedural complexities.
Certainly, this has made bureaucrats more audacious than perhaps in any previous government. One measure of this is Thomas's refusal to accept the Supreme Court's annulment of his appointment, pointing to powerful backers in the ruling apparatus.
Congress ministerial corruption: Besides the allies and bureaucrats, ruling-party ministers are deeply implicated in scams. Corruption in so-called ATM ministries no longer raises eyebrows.
But since nearly every ministry is now awash with funds, the scope for corruption is broader. Here, too, an unwritten but tightly-enforced rule applies. A share of the loot has to be passed to the chief bagman.
If the loot is not shared, a minister may be relocated. This happened with a top cabinet minister. Since everyone is looting, no one has a desire to rat.
So far, this system of collective loot has kept the UPA in power.
No V.P.Singh: L.K.Advani insightfully pointed out that the Congress/ UPA was safe because of an absent V.P.Singh who pulled the plug on Rajiv Gandhi.
There is another reason you can't easily do a V.P.Singh on the UPA. There is no equivalent of a Rajiv Gandhi in government.
The prime minister is a nobody. Real power resides outside the government with no accountability.
Manmohan Singh as PM: While the prime minister may or may not be monetarily corrupt, he is politically immoral and intellectually dishonest.
He lies when he says the vote that saved his government in July 2008 and favoured the Indo-US nuclear deal was clean.
Officials in the PMO were involved in corrupting MPs. His ministers were implicated, leave aside dodgy Congress heavyweights and their flunkeys.
Because Manmohan Singh has become addicted to prime-ministership, he will stoop to save his job. And so long he heads the government, the UPA's superstructure of corruption will remain intact.
First-time MPs: The UPA's biggest enablers in power are the first-time Lok-Sabha MPs, who constitute an astonishing fifty-nine percent.
Elections are expensive and they don't want early polls, not being assured of party funding, which typically favours veterans.
In the face of the resistance of first-time MPs, the opposition is powerless to move a no-confidence motion against the government.
And this adds to the UPA's confident arrogance to loot the country without let.
Uneasy bedfellows: While it is true that the BJP and the CPI-M/ Left have cornered the UPA-2 government repeatedly and successfully, they still make an uneasy and unlikely pair because of their conflicting ideologies (at least on paper).
Which is why even on the Wikileaks scandal, the NDA and Left launched formally separate campaigns, although the two leaderships have never been closer.
On the flip side, repeated Congress attempts to drive a "communal" wedge between the Left-NDA tacit alliance has so far failed, which is good for opposition politics -- and, at a remove, you and I.
De-personalizing attacks: In theory, this is good. But in an age of dynastic politics, how do you get away from the personal?
Could you, in all honesty, de-personalize DMK or Congress or NCP wrongdoing?
This writer was not convinced by Sushma Swaraj's forgiveness of the PM on Thomas. Subsequently trapped in the Rajya Sabha, Manmohan started a blame-game, which could lead to the core of the crooked Thomas appointment.
And the PM is at it again, being at his cavalier worst about Wikileaks. How can political discourse be kept "decent" and "polite" and "non-confrontationist" in the face of the wholesale abuse of Indian democracy and the mass scamming of the people?
In America's interest: Finally, it is to US advantage to keep the disgraceful Manmohan Singh government in power. Wikileaks reveals the shocking depth of US interference in the Central government.
A weak, pro-US PM obviously suits America. And Manmohan Singh's direct rival, Pranab Mukherjee, can forget about succeeding him in 2012, because America is on his tail, and distrusts him.
So there is no respite for India till 2014 -- and then, don't be too sure of that, either. What was revealed by Wikileaks was known before: that the DMK won a Lok Sabha and assembly seat each by bribing voters on an unprecedented scale.
If it can be done in Tamil Nadu, why not elsewhere?
It's all about money. And the UPA is far ahead in the loot game.
Worse may be in store.


http://www.newsinsight.net/archivedebat ... recno=2118

munna wrote: Muppalla-ji I agree with you, the cost of dreaming and being generous has been far too high. Lessons have been learnt and will be applied.

Pranav wrote: Unfortunately the poor people have had to pay a steep price so that folks like ABV can get some education. Prithviraj Chauhan syndrome was mentioned.

By the way, I had posted an article a few days back about how Vajpayee's relatives were connected with unrestrained looting. Maybe not on the same scale as Rahul Baba, but Vajpayee is indirectly responsible for 2G family loot, by letting Rahul Baba off the hook.

ravi_ku wrote: Sirjee,

What you said is
"A bystander for a rape committed the actual rape".

chaanakya wrote:kani and dayalu are likely to be named in CBI Charge sheet to be filed before 31st .

ramana wrote:

Pranav wrote:This fellow Nachiketa Kapur who showed the cash to the Americans seems very well connected (to JN Dixit, Renuka Chowdhary and others). To be fair PMO seems to have been trying to put a rein on him. See Why Congress fears the latest Wikileaks revelation - http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/s ... 110317.htm

Interesting how at odd moments Renuka Chowdhary's name pops up. She is a non-entitiy in Hyderabad now, but has some weight in Delhi.

Sonia Gandhi's tensions with Renuka Chowdhury
One does not know on who started the voices of dissidence, but all of a sudden, today, the various Andhra Pradesh Congress leaders met the Congress High Command and voiced against nominating Renuka Chowdhury for the Rajya Sabha seat.

They contend that since she lost the last elections by a huge margin, it is not proper for the Congress High Command to give preference to her while ignoring many other senior leaders.

But incidentlaly the decision to nominate her was taken around one week back and the Congress High Command blames the YS Jagan group for starting this dissidence since Renuka and Jagan are not at good terms with each other.

Incidentally Renuka Chowdhury's name was popped by none other than Sonia Gandhi and one has to wait and see whether she would bow down to this so called dissidence.

Shri ManMohan "squeaky clean" Singh has well and truly graduated into a full time politico and lie through his teeth with a straight face...

Hari Seldon wrote:Strange how nobody but nobody in the (alleged) parliamentary 'opposition' has not deemed fit to question smt sonia G directly? Or not demanded SG come clean on the appointments (CVC issue), on 2G, on cash-for-votes and now also on cabinet appointments (how was a whiz like sri montek left out of the finmin??) etc.

Reminds me of Voldemort or Sauron - 'he whose name we do not take. '

Yeah why don't you think the reasons and post them.

geeth wrote:
I have a feeling the testes of atleast some of the BJP stalwarts are firmly in the vicelike grip og SG.

ramana wrote:Geeth, Why do you think Sushma Swaraj tweeted that?

I think for her it was to get PJT out and not MMS.

vijayk wrote:There was a lot of gossip about her daughter and Rahul G spend some quality time together. Knowing Renuka, I won't be surprised that she will encourage her daughter.

Government ignored intelligence inputs on Shahid Balwa's D-links

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 740157.cms

NEW DELHI: The security establishment has several specific details to link Shahid Balwa, his father Usman Ebrahim Balwa, Vinod Goenka, his father Krishna Murari and brother Pramod Goenka to the Dawood gang and Chhota Shakeel. Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka are currently in jail in connection with the 2G scam.

Over the past seven-eight years, there has been a stream of inputs on the underworld links of both the families, a senior official said. The official, who looked at the two families as well as companies such as the Jet Airways in the past told TOI, "It's disheartening. We invest so much resource because there are serious issues of national security. But governments just ignore them."