Note:Voters and political parties in Bihar too need to identify who among them representatives of companies and business interests and not public interest and national interest. CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta and CPIM MP Tapan Sen have consistently raised the issue of the collusion of Indian National Congress led Government with companies. In recent times even Nitish Kumar has raised the issue but his party and the left parties failed to take a position on the recent enactment of Companies Act 2013 with that facilitates corporate funding of political parties even as BJP and Congress continued to call for state funding of elections from public platforms. Their hypocrisy is quite stark.
Gopal Krishna
Prashant Bhushan takes on Narendra Modi, calls him a Reliance puppet
NEW DELHI: Prashant Bhushan has described the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi,
a "puppet in the hands of Reliance (Industries) " and said that his
party will take Modi head on in the Lok Sabha polls in April and May
this year.
The AAP has refrained from articulating its stand on the BJP leader or Gujarat's governance, except for allegations made a year earlier that the Gujarat CM is favouring Adani Group for supplying electricity, even as cheaper power tariffs were offered by the state-owned Gujarat Mineral Development Corp.
But, with the party setting its eyes on the Lok Sabha elections, this
would change Bhushan, a member of AAP's Political Advisory Committee
(PAC) told ET.
"His
(Modi's) talk on corruption is bogus. We (the AAP) consider him to
represent the same kind of corrupt politics that we have seen in this
country and have already exposed his corruption in the Adani case. And
why is Modi silent on the gas pricing dispute which is one of the
biggest scams today? If you listen to the Radia tapes you'll see that
the BJP leadership is nothing but a puppet in the hands of Reliance and
Modi is part of this corruption," he said, referring to the conversation
between Rajya Sabha member of the Janata Dal-United (BJP's ally at that point) NK Singh and Niira Radia on getting BJP to replace Arun Shourie as the lead speaker in the Upper House to change the course of the discussion on gas pricing in July 2009 in favour of RIL.
Yogendra Yadav,
widely regarded as the new party's chief strategist, echoed Bhushan's
views on Modi, though his tone was softer. "It's not a question on
whether we will raise Modi's corrupt practices because we have already
done it. We were the first one to talk about it when we raised the Adani
issue.
As
and when the need arises, we will talk about it again". Alleged
snooping by Gujarat government agencies would also be brought to the
fore during the election campaign, Bhushan said.
"He
used the state's security agencies to snoop on innocent people and
destroy the career of honest officers like Pradeep Sharma. Amit Shah, a
man with murder charges against him is his lieutenant. He didn't allow
the Lokayukta to be formed in Gujarat.
Closer
to the Lok Sabha elections, we will raise these issues and tell
everyone what we think about Modi," the activist lawyer said. After the
Delhi assembly elections, AAP has seen its membership in the western
state increase to around one lakh from 6,000 members.
Apart
from BJP MLA and social activist Kanu Kalsariya, senior academicians,
and former bureaucrats, among others, have joined the party in the state
in recent times. Gujarat, according to Bhushan, is one of the states
AAP expects to do well in the upcoming polls. Bhushan has been an old
antagonist of the RIL, having filing a PIL in the 1990s against the
award of the Mukta-Panna oil and gas fields. RIL has two industrial complexes at Hariza and Jamnagar in Gujarat.
Ritika Chopra, ET Bureau Jan 9, 2014
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