As the wise men say, time stops for no one. There was a time of scams, back-room dealings and crony-capitalism and now that the NDA led Central government is in Delhi, the freedom enjoyed by the benefactors of the Congress corruption era has come to an end. Not only have the scams stopped, but the guilty individuals too are slowly being dealt with, one by one. While nobody can accuse the Modi-government of being corrupt, his soft stance had often confused his supporters. When justice would be served, why were the scammers still free? Questions like these often lingered on the back of the minds of voters who had chosen NDA over Congress. The clean image of PM Modi combined with his alleged lack of action on the fraudulent personalities of the Congress party regime was enough to confuse Indians.
What everyone needs to account for is the time needed to uncover facts and evidences from the mess created by Congress party. The intensity of the scams combined with bringing out hard facts which would pin the blame on the wrongdoers takes time. The foundation was laid and the results have started coming. Four major blows were dealt to the Congress party’s close aides on Friday, 6th of April 2018.
The biggest and the most powerful setback to the Congress party came when the son-in-law of UPA chairperson and ex- Congress party President Sonia Gandhi, Robert Vadra’s plea was rejected by the Supreme Court of India. The plea was filed by Robert Vadra, a director in Skylight Hospitality Private Limited, the firm against which a reassessment investigation plea was filed by the Income Tax department. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s brother-in-law, Robert Vadra had moved to the apex court seeking to halt the investigation.
The Supreme Court denied the plea, stating it was satisfied with the explanations provided by the IT department with regard to the reassessment of dubious profits made by the company in 2010-11.
The second blow came just a little while later, this time by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). According to sources the CBI is ready with a questionnaire for senior Congress party leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, regarding his role and conduct in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB). The FIPB was a national agency which acted as a single window clearance for proposals on Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in India. FIPB was abolished by BJP’s Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on 24 May 2017, during the 2017-18 budget speech in Lok Sabha.
A company owned by P Chidambaram’s son Karti P. Chidambaram had allegedly benefitted from the INX Media money laundering case in 2007 & 2008. Karti Chidambaram had been taken into custody by the CBI for questioning in February upon his arrival at the Chennai airport from United Kingdom. P. Chidambaram, then finance minister, had allegedly helped his son during his tenure.
The third blow too came from the CBI which had urged the Indian authorities to issue a Look Out Circular (LOC) to all the major airports in India against ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak Kochhar and Videocon Group promoter Venugopal Dhoot. The lookout notice is equivalent to impounding the passports of the three accused and is aimed at preventing the three from flying out of an airport without informing the concerned authorities. CBI had earlier questioned Chanda Kochhar’s brother-in-law Rajiv Kochhar in Mumbai in connection with ICICI bank’s Rs 3,250 crore loan to the Videocon Group in 2012. The CBI had registered a preliminary case regarding the alleged wrongdoings in the sanctioning of the Rs 3,250 crore loan given to the Videocon Group.
The final blow which came late in the evening was again from CBI. The report that a questionnaire was being drafted by the agency for questioning of ex-RBI governor Raghuram Rajan regarding the 80:20 gold scheme which had been implemented during his tenure as the RBI chief. Rajan had issued an order using his position as RBI governor to allow 13 trading houses to import gold in May 2014 under the 80:20 scheme, the order was signed by former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on the 15th of May, 2014. Ex-Deputy Governor of RBI HR Khan was already being interrogated by the CBI, regarding the aforementioned scheme. It was done in the last few days of the Congress regime which further raises the suspicion related to the involvement of Congress party in the gold scam by Nirav Modi.
These setbacks to the Congress prove that the NDA regime has finally started to crackdown on the Congress corruption and is working to bring the guilty to justice. There will be many more probes to follow, highlighting the Congress corruption. We need to have faith in Mr. Modi while watching out for more revelations concerning the Congress corruption during their reign.
