Turning Tables on Talkfest

BY RK MISRA

Spoken at will, words return to haunt at leisure.
There is a familiar ring around  chief minister Mamata Bannerjee’s blistering attack on the BJP- led NDA government at the Centre on misuse of  CBI against the interests of West Bengal. Also, there is the instance of  finance minister Arun Jaitley slamming the West Bengal government for it’s harsh criticism of  the Centre. Again, of BJP president Amit Shah’s frontal assault, saying Saradha scam money funded Burdwan blasts and that Mamata was  blocking the  NIA probe. Yet again, the BJP, December 7, attacking the lady for keeping away from the CMs’ meet convened by the Prime Minister. And, so it goes on….
Was it not very long ago that the  three honourable worthies-Narendra Modi, Arun Jaitley and Amit Shah-were mouthing from Gujarat what’s today the  ‘Mamataspeak’, from West Bengal?.
For over a decade, then Chief Minister Modi, his Rajya Sabha MP from  the state Jaitley and  minister of state for Home, Shah were blasting Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh and their Congress- led UPA government at the Centre for the conspiracy against Gujarat and the use of the CBI to fulfill their nefarious designs. Right from the point Modi took charge as CM in 2001, it was  the ‘asmita’ of Gujarat and it’s five crore gujaratis, that he alleged, was under attack from a Congress- led Centre. A first time CM, he  even found historical parables for it. The mythical Nehru-Patel rivalry was linked  to the injustice done on Gujarat, a la Sardar Patel missing the bus of PM post. The  Nehru lineage was opposed to Gujarat, so implied  the thesis propounded by the Modi government.
Every  demand turned down by the Centre was attributed  to this lone reason. The Congress- ruled Centre could do no right and the Modi- ruled Gujarat, do no wrong. That was until, India elected him the Prime Minister. It is now the turn of non-BJP ruled states to yell ‘bloody murder’, and the  turn of the Modi- led Centre  to castigate them for crying ‘wolf’. How things change and yet remain the same! But for the role reversal, even the sentences being mouthed by the various Central characters-whether in the states or at the Centre-remain the same!
Familiarity may breed contempt, but similarity ‘seeds’ comparisons. The cleanliness drive  and the Prime Minister’s call to MPs to adopt villages  has received tremendous response. And rightly so. The first person to initiate, such a programme, however, was  the first BJP chief minister of Gujarat, Keshubhai Patel. The scheme undertaken in right earnest was termed ‘Gokul gram yojna’. This scheme for all-round village development, was however, shelved after Modi took over as CM. Instead, it was replaced by a “samras” gram  scheme. The scheme was so  planned  that the village which chose to unanimously elect it’ s governing body was marked out for incentives. Goes without saying, that it was the saffronfold  they veered round for  the slew of  incentives that awaited them, thereafter paving the way for the saffron consolidation of the state. That was the politics underlying the  presumptive generosity. Thus the village adoption scheme propounded  by the Prime Minister has it’s seeds sown herein. Arn’t many UPA flagship programmes  undergoing similar  metamorphosis under the present NDA government?
Was it not  in similar vein that Gujarat, under Modi  refused to part  with it’s lions for neighbouring Madhya Pradesh?.Several national authorities had recommended  an alternative home for the Asiatic lions housed in it’s lone home in Sasan Gir  in  the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. The plea for an alternative abode for this lone sub-specie in the globe was based on  the premise that the possibility of it being wiped out by an epidemic cannot be ruled out. Modi, however was adamant. He fought all the way to the Supreme Court and lost and continued to lose all manner of appeals before the apex court even thereafter.
Now what? The law  has ruled in favour of Gujarat parting with a few of their lions in national interest. Will Modi, now the country’s Prime Minister, respect  and comply or will personal pique get the better of him?
Another example. Chief minister Modi’s government piloted the Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Laws (Amendment) Bill 2011 through the state legislature but the then Governor Kamala Beniwal rejected it on grounds of constitutional validity. This-as for others-she faced the music from the then chief minister. Now the shoe is on the other foot and the wearer’s reaction is the same as the previous one. Prime Minister Modi’s government on November 20, 2014 has also sent back  Chief Minister Modi’s land bill,  which seeks to ease restrictions on conversion of agricultural land to non-gricultural for projects of public interest seeking  clarifications!As in these cases so in lot many others, justice largely emerged from  the judicial system  with invariably every  perceived  state misdemeanor ending up in the lap of the Supreme Court. The 2002 communal riot cases, almost  all of them, were shoddily investigated and buried until the Supreme Court set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT). The fake encounter cases and there were piles of them-Sohrabuddin Sheikh, shrat Jahan, Tulsiram Prajapati, Jamal Mehtar- and many more, all of them investigated by the CBI under court orders led to  a DGP, DIGs, SPs, even  two ministers including Amit Shah landing up behind bars. Modi had then launched a high decibel campaign charging the ‘Sonia’ government with targeting Gujarat through the CBI (the  ‘Congress Bureau of Investigations’ he called it ). Now? Is it a mere coincidence  that after a change in the ruling party at the centre, almost all the  tops cops who were behind bars in fake encounter cases are out on jail and back on job. And almost all in better positions than they previously held! The CBI, however, remains  the same. Was it being manipulated then or is it being manipulated now. Or ofcourse both! If so, then what is the promised change for clean, good governance. Maybe time will tell, for truth emerges  more readily from error than from confusion.

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