News Analysis India

Tag: corruption

  • Congress dares PM to investigate Ambani, Adani for ‘distributing’ black money to it

    New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to use his investigating agencies like the CBI and the ED to probe the charges he has levelled against businessmen Ambani and Adani that they were distributing sacks full of black money in tempos. Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate claimed that the prime minister was never seen so weak and desperate that he ended up making great revelations about corruption in the country and exposing his own friends.

    She was referring to the charge on Wednesday made by prime minister who, for the first time during Lok Sabha poll campaign, accused the Congress of having a “deal” with “Ambani and Adani”, and asked if the party has received “tempo loads of black money” from the two industrialists for its leader Rahul Gandhi to stop “abusing” them.

    Shrinate pointed out that Rahul Gandhi has been saying the same thing for the last 10 years that the big businessmen possessed black money but the prime minister was not taking action against them. She said, the prime minister has gathered the courage and admitted about it. She asked when will the prime minister use his agencies like the CBI, the ED and the Income Tax to probe these charges. AllUttar PradeshMaharashtraTamil NaduWest BengalBiharKarnatakaAndhra PradeshTelanganaKeralaMadhya PradeshRajasthanDelhiOther States “The prime minister of this country has never been so weak, helpless and desperate before. Yesterday, Narendra Modi showed courage and made a big revelation on corruption. “The PM got this courage by looking at Rahul Gandhi, who is fearlessly exposing corruption, speaking out against the corrupt with great vigour and exposing Adani and Ambani. It was with this courage that Narendra Modi made such a big disclosure about corruption,” she said. Shrinate charged that looking at his upcoming defeat, Prime Minister Modi made serious allegations of corruption. “Now that it has been revealed then what is there to fear from? Get it investigated… Get raids conducted at your friends’ places. The irony is that the prime minister is making allegations but the investigating agencies and the media are stunned. Don’t be afraid… Get it checked. We will support you,” she told reporters.

    Several Congress leaders put out video messages on their social media handles asking when will Prime Minister Modi order investigation against Adani and Ambani after his big allegation.

    Shrinate also said the Congress wants to assure the people that they should not be scared.

    “Narendra Modi created 22 billionaires. We will create crores of ‘lakhpatis’, and that is our promise,” she claimed.

    The Congress leader claimed that the revelations made by Prime Minister Modi on corruption have created a stir in the entire BJP and the government.

    “The people are scared because they know that when Modi Ji can sacrifice his close aides after seeing the defeat then where do they stand,” she alleged.

    She claimed that even those officers who were working on Modi’s instructions are scared. All of them have understood that the government is about to change, she said.

    “There is a clear writing on the wall that neither the BJP is going to form the government at the Centre on June 4 nor is Narendra Modi becoming the prime minister again,” she said, adding that this has already become clear in the first three phases of polling.

    In a change of narrative on the ‘Ambani-Adani’ issue, which was until now used by the Congress to attack Modi and his government at the Centre, the prime minister also demanded that the party should explain to the people why it has stopped raising the issue as its ‘Shehzada’ (Rahul Gandhi) used to do for the past five years and asked if it has struck a ‘sauda’ (deal).

    The Prime Minister also said, “Certainly something is fishy. For five years, (they) abused Adani-Ambani and it stopped overnight. It means you have received some tempo loads of ‘chori ka maal’ (loot)… Kaale dhan ki kitni boriya bharkar ke rupaye maare hain (how many sacks of black money you have taken)? You have to answer the nation.”

  • 'When BJP speaks about corruption it seems like Osama Bin Laden is speaking…': AAP's Sanjay Singh

    'When BJP speaks about corruption it seems like Osama Bin Laden is speaking…': AAP's Sanjay Singh

  • Arvind Kejriwal: Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest: AAP faces leadership crisis ahead of Lok Sabha election

    New Delhi: The arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the alleged excise policy scam case has posed a leadership crisis question before the AAP as well as the Delhi government, with his wife Sunita Kejriwal and cabinet ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj being talked about as his possible replacement. The challenge before the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) now is to come up with a worthy leader who could handle both the party and its government in Delhi in absence of Kejriwal.

    However, it’s indeed a big task for the AAP leadership to come up with a name of a leader that at least comes closer to Kejriwal’s stature as convener of the party since its inception in 2012 and holding Delhi Chief Minister’s post for three terms spanning nearly a decade.

    The urgency of the task becomes even more pressing as the AAP is gearing up to contest the Lok Sabha polls in Punjab, Delhi, Gujarat, Assam and Haryana in which Kejriwal was to be a key campaigner of the party. Apart from Sunita Kejriwal, a former IRS officer, the names of AAP government ministers Atishi and Bharadwaj too are taking rounds for the post of Delhi chief minister.

    Atishi, who holds the maximum number of portfolios in the Delhi government, including education, finance, PWD, revenue and services, is considered close to Arvind Kejriwal.

    She is also a frontline spokesperson of the party defending the AAP government and Kejriwal, and attacking the BJP in her regular press conferences and appearances on news channels. Likewise, Bharadwaj is also a prominent member of the Delhi Cabinet holding several important portfolios including health and urban development. He, too, is a well known face of the party, often engaged in defending the party and its leaders and counter-attacking the BJP and its government at the Centre on a range of governance-related and political issues.

    However, in December last year, the AAP launched a signature campaign ‘Mai Bhi Kejriwal’, asking people whether he should resign as Delhi chief minister or run the government from jail if arrested.

    During the campaign, the AAP supremo also met party MLAs and municipal corporation councilors in Delhi for their feedback on the issue.

    Bharadwaj recently told reporters in a press conference, “Nearly 90 per cent of people in this exercise opined that Kejriwal has the mandate of Delhi and he has been elected and hence, only he would run the government in Delhi no matter from where.”

    The AAP leadership also has to find a replacement of Kejriwal to head the party that runs governments in Delhi and Punjab besides having MLAs in Gujarat and Goa as well.

    In this area also, the options of the party are rather limited.

    Apart from Sunita Kejriwal, name of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Atishi too are taking rounds as leaders who could hold the responsibility of new AAP national convener.

  • TMC: Modi hits out at TMC over corruption and dynasty politics

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday upped the ante against the TMC on the issue of corruption and dynasty politics and said the opposition alliance INDIA parties such as the Trinamool Congress and the Congress are bothered only about the development of their families. Giving a clarion call to defeat the Mamata Banerjee-led party in West Bengal, the prime minister while addressing a mega rally in Siliguri said, “The road to oust the corrupt TMC government from West Bengal will open from the Lok Sabha polls.”

    “I have seen mothers of our country struggling for basic amenities. That is why I stress on sanitisation, free electricity, bank accounts and tap water to make the lives of our mothers and sisters easier. But here, first the Left Front and then the TMC government have ignored the basic needs of the people of the state,” he said.

    Modi said the TMC has been looting the people of the state and had indulged in creating fake job cards for looting central funds sent by the Centre under MGNREGA. Hitting out at dynasty politics of opposition parties, Modi said the “TMC is only bothered about its nephew whereas the Congress is bothered only about the royal family,” in an apparent reference to TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and the Gandhi family in Congress.

  • ‘Parivarvad has destroyed J&K bank…’: PM Modi targets Abdullah and Mufti in Srinagar rally – The Economic Times Video

    Srinagar, J&K: Prime Minister Narendra Modi says “J&K has been a huge victim of ‘Parivarvad’ and corruption. The previous governments here had left no stone unturned to destroy our J&K Bank, by filling the bank with their relatives and nephews, these ‘Parivarvadis’ have ruined the bank. Due to mismanagement, the bank had incurred so much loss that all of you were in danger of losing thousands of crores of rupees…”

  • Will fulfil Shah’s Lok Sabha seat target in West Bengal: Majumdar

    The BJP’s West Bengal president Sukanta Majumdar has flagged the issue of infiltration and said his party will contest the upcoming general election in the state on the planks of “large-scale corruption” of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) and the performance of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.

    “Infiltration is the biggest challenge faced by Bengal and it is a question of how the state can be saved,” Majumdar told ET in an exclusive interview. “The law and order situation is precarious in West Bengal, especially in some parts like the border area of Sandeshkhali. Demography in these bordering regions has completely changed over the years since independence. If we compare the census in 1947 and the last census in 2011, there is a huge change in the demography due to infiltration.”

    Poll Planks”We will fight the Lok Sabha polls on two issues – large-scale corruption of Trinamool Congress and PM Narendra Modi’s performance in the last few years and Modi’s developmental model,” Majumdar said.

    Talking about candidate selection for the upcoming polls, he said, “We will consider certain factors during candidate selection for Lok Sabha polls – whether they are associated with the party’s work actively, ideological background and clean image. These three factors will be considered with utmost importance during candidate selection.”

    While inducting new workers into the party, the BJP aims to focus on fresh faces with a clean image, he said. “Fresh faces will be taken into the party. We will not accept rotten potatoes. We will rather focus on fresh faces and karyakartas (workers) instead of leaders,” he said.The BJP has worked hard to build an organisational base in the state in the past few years, Majumdar said. “We have built a strong organisational structure and the number of people in the booths is far higher than that in 2019. We have become stronger and booths have also been strengthened. We will be able to fulfil the target set by Amit Shah for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls,” he said.Shah has fixed a target of winning 35 out of the 42 seats in the state in the Lok Sabha polls. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP had won 18 seats, up from two seats in 2014.

    Rohingyas

    “There is a presence of Rohingyas in Sandeshkhali area. People like Shahjahan Sheikh have given place in the area to the Rohingyas in and around the fisheries and they are used by the Trinamool Congress politically. The Trinamool Congress government in Bengal is aware of it but they are silent on the matter. It is an open secret,” Majumdar said, adding that large tracts of areas where fisheries are run in Sandeshkhali and adjacent areas are a haven of illegal and anti-social activities.

    Talking about the central government’s intervention on AITC leader Shahjahan Sheikh, Majumdar said, “It should be an administrative decision as to what kind of central intervention is required to control these kind of incidents. The Centre should intervene in the matter depending on the law of the land.”

    Majumdar had written a letter to Union home minister Amit Shah last Friday, seeking intervention of the Centre and National Investigation Agency probe into the attack on Enforcement Directorate officials who went to raid Sheikh’s residence in connection with alleged Public Distribution System case. The officials were attacked and suffered serious injuries during the attack. “It is not only merely an attack on the Enforcement Directorate but an attack on the Constitution of India and sovereignty of the country,” said Majumdar.