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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