Narendra Modi during his campaign for the Prime Ministership in 2013 and early months of 2014 focused mainly on corruption of the UPA-2 government in the last two years of its tenure and promised to the Indian voters a corruption-free government in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The Congress stuck by the developments related to 2-G telecom spectrum scam suffered the defeat leading to the taking over of the Prime Minister’s position by the fighter against corruption Narendra Modi.
Ten years after, as the country is going through the polling phases for constituting the 18th Lok Sabha, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been focusing on the same corruption issue against the Congress taking advantage of the raids by the central agencies on the opposition leaders and close associates mainly belonging to the Congress party. Many of the opposition leaders are not clean in their business dealings, but this is more true for the BJP leaders and supporters who have been kept out of the purview of the central agencies like the CBI, ED and the income Tax department.
Prime Minister’s one sided attack on the opposition on the issue of corruption hides the reality that the BJP led government has continued the corrupt practices at the level of the centre as also the states ruled by the party and the common people have day to day experience about the presence of corrupt practices. The recent pre-Lok Sabha election survey done by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Lokniti found that 55 per cent of respondents said that corruption had increased in the last five years.
A look at the history of the functioning of the government of India since independence in 1947 shows that the corruption was present all through, only the method changed with the ruling elite taking more interest in collecting kickbacks from big contracts. In fact, Rajiv Gandhi after his take over as the elected prime minister in 1984-85 mentioned corruption as one of the areas he proposed to do away with, but unfortunately, he got implicated in the so called Bofors controversy which became a major issue in 1989 Lok Sabha elections. The Janata Dal leader V P Singh conducted a massive campaign on Bofors issue, aided by other anti-Congress leaders resulting in the defeat of the Congress led by Rajiv Gandhi.
Even during the regime of the BJP Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during 1999-2004 period, the selling of the public sector units was a big scandal. The business houses close to the BJP benefitted the most by getting the PSEs at a very low value. The BJP was certainly benefitted. During Dr. Manmohan Singh’s second term, the auctions benefitted few business houses and there were mishandling, but the Prime Minister Dr. Singh himself was honest to the core though as PM, he was accountable for the decision.
Interestingly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been campaigning for long that he is above corruption, he has no family, the entire 140 crore Indians belong to his family. That’s is why he can go the whole hog to take on the corrupt and remove corruption from the system. But this personal honesty, even accepted , does not mean that Modi has been fair in dealing with his decisions on major economic policies concerning the industrial houses. The houses close to the PM and the BJP have extracted most of the benefits during the Modi decade and that has led to unprecedented concentration of wealth in Modi years, especially in the second term. If this is not corruption, what is ?
As per the corruption perception index published by Transparency International, India’s rank fell from 85 in 2014 to 93 in 2013. These are Narendra Modi years meaning that the claim of the Prime Minister about the removal of corruption in government work during his regime is total bullshit. The corruption level has gone up much during Modi regime compared to Manmohan years. The only difference is that the corporate media is full of corruption stories fed by the Modi government and its agencies, but no probe is made neither by the agencies nor by media into the operations of the BJP linked industrial houses and the trading groups.
In post independent India, crony capitalists never had a field day as against the traditional industrialists as they are having during the regime of Narendra Modi. As per the estimates made by The Economist weekly of UK ,India’s share of billionaire wealth derived from rent-thick or crony sectors rose from 29 per cent to 43 per cent between 2016 and 2021. These are the years of Modi rule. Trends show that in the next two years, the crony share must have gone up.
According to OXFAM report, India is facing rising industrial concentration in just five hands, and is enriching billionaires, private equity funds, and crony capitalists driving unprecedented level of inequalities and poverty among people. Dalits are facing high and unaffordable out-of-pocket fees in the private healthcare sector, financial exclusion in the private healthcare sector, and overt discrimination in both. The areas where the concentration is rising exponentially, belong to the industrialists close to PM and the BJP.
During the last ten years, the BJP government has followed policies weakening the public sector and encouraging the private sector expansion even in critical areas. Privatization can drive and reinforce inequalities in vital public services, entrenching gaps between rich and poor, excluding and impoverishing those who cannot pay while those who can pay are able to access good healthcare and education. Privatization can also drive inequalities on the basis of gender, race, and caste. For example, Oxfam found that Dalits in India face high and unaffordable out-of-pocket fees in the private healthcare sector; financial exclusion in the private education sector; and overt discrimination in both.
That way in the last ten years, the Prime Minister has not removed corruption an inch, he has also given a new facet to corruption by hiding the reality of the present day corruption. The electoral bonds scheme and the quid pro quo between the Government and the industry people regarding the purchase of bonds is the biggest case of corruption. Such corruption of wider dimension did not take place in the Indian history of elections since 1951-52. It is time, the INDIA exposes with vengeance the continuing lies on corruption free rule propagated by the Prime Minister and the BJP. The electorate must know the truth and the full truth. The present Modi government is the most corrupt government in independent India’s history. (IPA Service)
BJP complains to EC against Cong ‘spreading lies’ 