Opinion View from the right

Evidence,he says,“has mounted in the last several years that the crux of the government’s eagerness to hide the names is because among the culprits is the Congress party itself,more especially the party’s present and previous presidents and prime ministers.”

“It is not ‘Q’ alone who has been a family friend of the Gandhis,whose involvement in the salting out of Indian funds abroad would hurt the Congress. If the exposures so far of the Gandhis themselves in various kickbacks that are funneled into Swiss accounts are any guide,the rot goes deep into the heart of the ruling party and its sole leader itself,” he says. Punj says that “one is entitled to ask Dr Singh and his party boss,how does this list compare with their assurance to the electorate in 2009 before the general election that Congress would bring back the national wealth secreted abroad.”

Backing BSY
An article in the Organiser strongly backs B.S. Yeddyurappa — the embattled Karnataka chief minister — in the context of Governor H.R. Bhardwaj’s grant of sanction to prosecute him. It endorses the BJP’s criticism of the governor and points out that party-led governments should improve the functioning of their information departments to keep the public abreast of the facts. The article repeats the BJP’s assertion that Yeddyurappa’s predecessors had also allocated lands under their discretionary powers and the governor never took action against them. Bhardwaj became the governor of Karnataka in 2009,a year after BSY came to power.

Questioning the sanction for prosecution given by Bhardwaj on the basis of private complaints against the chief minister,the article draws a parallel between a similar petition filed by Subramanian Swamy against the former telecom minister,A. Raja.

In the case of Swamy,it says that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not give permission for a year and accepted the plea that the request for sanctioning prosecution was premature,saying that he was waiting for a report from the CBI. The article says the PM had also argued that the stage for considering such sanction would come only after a magistrate took cognisance of the crime and asked for sanction.

The article stands by the BJP’s view that BSY need not quit because of Raj Bhavan’s politically motivated action,which,it argues,violates the principles of natural justice and could be set aside by a court of law.

Gandhi vs Congress
Interestingly,an article in Panchjanya invokes Mahatma Gandhi several times to target the culture of greed and corruption in the Congress. Tracing the history of the Congress from its inception in 1885,the article says that the party had,in its early years,started the trend of bogus membership drives mainly to attract people from the minority community.

The article extensively quotes “Gandhiji” — whose assassination was initially blamed on the RSS — to make the point that corruption had deeply pervaded the Congress party even in the short duration that it exercised power in the provinces after the 1937 elections. The article cites Gandhi’s writing in Harijan newspaper on August 7 in that year to back its argument,but it laments the fact that Gandhi refused to intervene in the matter.

It claims that Gandhi was extremely disturbed by the increasing tendency in the Congress to resort to violence to settle issues within the party. “Now the Congress doesn’t belong to people who believe in non-violence and creative programmes… whenever Congressmen gain access to power there is an unhealthy competition to share the spoils,” the article quotes from Gandhi’s writings.

In short,the piece implies that Gandhi had repeatedly blamed the Congress for allowing bogus membership,siphoning funds,and the bribery that dominated the elections of the various party committees. The writer claims that Gandhi was disillusioned with the indiscipline,greed for posts,selfishness and violence that had started creeping into the Congress.