Even after 70 years of independence India continues to be regarded as a poor nation, with about 20% of its population still living under the poverty line. No doubt, it is considered right now as the second fastest developing economy in the world, just next to China and quite ahead of US, UK, France and Germany. It has a very vibrant middle class now. Nevertheless, it continues to be regarded as a "third world country" in spite of the huge strides it has taken on the economic front in the last 25 years after the announcement of the New Economic policy in 1992. One of the main reasons why India is still poor is Corruption.
One may argue that corruption is there every where in the world. But during 2009 to 2014, i.e. the second term of the UPA rule (headed by the Congress party), India witnessed unprecedentedly high levels of corruption, ever since its independence. Scam after scam the public continued to receive severe jolts when one after the other its elected representatives behaved like Traitors, evacuating the national money and filling up their own safes.
It all started with the Common wealth Games scam of 2010. In the same year, this CWG were held in New Delhi. Congress member and Union minister Suresh Kalmadi, came out to be the main culprit. Out of the total allotment of money towards the Games, only 55% was actually spent. The rest went into the bank accounts of Kalmadi and all his partners in crime. The scam ran into about 110 crores.
Then came the infamous 2G scam, Union Communications minister of that time, Mr. A,Raja had allotted different rookie companies licences for the 2G spectrum in an illegal manner, with a policy of "first-come-first-serve" in 2008 and also had received kickbacks (bribes) from that. He had given away such very important 2G licences at throw-away prices, with Unitech getting it at just 1500 crores (price of 2001), instead of the then (year 2008's) possible price of 4500 crores. Such foolish and corrupt allotment of bandwidth licenses to comparatively new companies in the communications sector, resulted in a loss of 1.76 lac crore rupees (1760000000000 rupees) to the national exchequer. Recently when A.Raja got acquitted from all corruption charges in the 2G scam, his supporters argued that the loss figure of 1.76 lac crore was all presumptive and the actual loss to the national exchequer was zero rupees. Now this is total rubbish. Here is why.
Suppose you own a house in a luxurious posh area. There is a neighbor next to you owning a house very similar to that of yours with the same land area, same type of construction, same number of rooms and all same facilities just like yours. He sells the house at 1 crore. That means now you know it for sure that if you sell your house right now, you will get at least 1 crore, as every thing about your house is the same as that of your neighbor. Now a broker comes in and asks to buy your house at 40 lac rupees, arguing that the original price of the house when it was a newly build one was just 40 lacs in 2010. Would you sell it to him at 40 lacs? If you do so, then isn't it a loss of 60 lacs to you? Can you claim that it is not a loss of 60 lacs, as you had bought it at 40 lacs and sold it at the same price, meaning that your loss is zero? What answer will you give to your wife, your father, if suppose you make a stupid mistake of selling the house at 40 lacs? The same situation is here. Here the house is analogous to the 2G spectrum, you are to A.Raja, your wife and family are the indians. After having sold the 2G spectrum at throw-away prices Raja argues that there was no loss at all and the loss figure of 1.76 lac crores is all conjured up and presumptive. Had he not been a corrupt fool, he would have sold the same spectrum at a price which would have fetched the finance ministry 1.76 lac crore more than what it actually fetched at that time. This was nothing else but a huge LOSS. His DMK supporters would argue that the entire 122 licences were cancelled by the Supreme court in 2011. Okay, even if those licenses got cancelled, what about the kickbacks that Raja, Kanimozhi and others received? Over and above that, was Raja not responsible for letting go an opportunity in which the nation's treasury would have gained a whopping sum of 1.76 lac crore, had he worked in a non-corrupt and smart manner? I firmly believe that Raja, Kanimozhi and others were guilty of corruption in this case and they are wrongly acquitted from all corruption charges. The case needs re-examination and CBI has rightly said that it will go to a higher court for the same. After all, India can not forgive those people who have incurred such a monstrous loss to it and it should not.
Then came the Adarsh scam in which the then chief minister of Maharashtra was involved. The scam was such that all the collected money of the pensions of retired ex-army men was misplaced and mis-handled. This scam ran into several hundred crores. That was followed by a gigantic Coal gate scam. This scam again ran into several lacs of crores just like the 2G scam. Scam after scam, the image of the ruling congress party got deteriorated and the innocent public were left helpless to watch the nude dance of shameless politicians openly looting public money. The congress pretended to punish some of the scamsters, but those steps were too little done too late. The national public opinion had drifted quite away from their favor and with the rise of Narendra Modi, the indian masses bid Good-bye to the congress party in the national General elections of 2014. It got only 44 seats in the Lower house of the indian parliament (LokSabha) whereas the NDA led by the BJP got a strong majority of 332 seats. This severe downfall of the Congress was chiefly due to One main reason - their utterly shameless pattern of rampant corruption during those horrific 5 years from 2009 to 2014.
Now, in the last 7 days, suddenly an atmosphere is being created by parties like Congress, DMK, RJD that indians should forget all corruption that was done!! First the DMK and Congress members started shouting that there was no corruption done in the 2G spectrum case and then a couple of days ago Laluprasad Yadav, the chief of the RJD party, wished that he be acquitted from all corruption charges like A.Raja and Kanimozhi!! WHAT IS GOING ON? Is there no decency left among the politicians and members of such parties? They are asking the indian masses to forget and forgive a loss of about 300,000 crore rupees of public money!!! (yes, the total money lost in scams in that period of 5 years was 300,000 crores approximately) It is an amount in which the whole nation with a demographic strength of 132.2 crores can be fed for 15 days, with good food twice a day. What the hell are these parties talking about? Can India ever forgive these shameless, hungry monsters? Can the indians again allow them to walk free after committing such huge crimes? The answer is a clear-cut NO. They can not be acquitted from any of the charges, whether they have been involved in a huge scam or a small one. Each and every one of them should be punished like never before so that it becomes an example for potential scamsters to learn from. The ideal punishment, according to me would be life-imprisonment. They should spend the rest of their lives, getting rotten in indian jails among other criminals of murder, rape etc.
Vande Maataram, Bhaarat Maata ki Jay....!!
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