In yesterday's Times of India, there was this item: 'Majority of 2G licences given by Raja illegal: CAG'. Earlier, we had reports that the 2G scam might be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, in Indian history. Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy's special leave petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court is also to come up for hearing this week. The petition seeks minister’s prosecution alleging that his actions in awarding second-generation (2G) licences in 2008 had caused an estimated loss of Rs.70,000 crore [Rs. 700 billion] to the government exchequer.
Raja is supposed to have acted against the Department's guidelines, personally cleared awards to companies that did not have any experience or wherewithals to roll out 2G, gone for first come first served basis and not through the fair route of inviting tenders, hurried dates of submission of interest to suit some companies and so on. Each of these acts is liable to action, and collectively they represent a systemic loot.
Now, who else do you want to show that Raja was personally and collectively culpable for the scam? Not CAG - the highest audit body? Tomorrow, you will also protect Raja behind some stonewalling law against a Minister's prosecution. Even if you do not do that, you are already committing sins of the worst type a supposedly honest Prime Minister can ever do: turning a blind eye on it all.
You might say that we should not sit in judgement; agreed, and we are not demanding that he be hanged or stoned to death and that too before a court or enquiry commission proves his guilt. But let the government at least ask Raja to go. Any one day delay in his departure means the government is losing people's faith in it.
I am not talking about the legality of the case but the level of corruption within the government run by Manmohan Singh and patronised by Sonia, and the level of tolerance for such corruption. If for political reasons, Manmohan does not dare to act against Raja even mildly, he must resign himself. What is there for him to lose except the frills that being a Prime Minister brings? If he were what his image has been so far, ie an honest person, he should have resigned over many such cases. He too has turned into a shameless creature whose appetite for power is only growing by the day.
As a frustrated Indian, I can only say, shame on you Raja and his DMK. But shame and spit on you, Manmohan and Sonia.
i posted one comment yesterday on one of your posts.
ReplyDeletefor today, i only say, cursing raja and manmohan will not do. we need to show them their place by strengthening civil groups and rti and court cases and voting against them in elctions.