by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
BJP's Mission- 2019: Task Force In Place
Irrespective of the outcome of Assembly polls due to take place this year, the Central leadership of the BJP has started gearing up for the May 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Recruitment of commissioned task force for 300 Lok Sabha seats has begun quietly. These seats have been identified by the party which it will contest seriously across the country and an army of work force is being recruited. The task force will be commissioned for a limited period of three to four months and will be in place of work by January 1. However, they will be acclimatized and given a crash course for 15 days so that they are fully conversant of the constituency, local dialect, customs and caste equations. All of them will be given a motorbike, fuel and daily allowance. Arrangements are being made for their stay at the house of a local BJP leader so that they are fully conversant with the political situation. This poll model is completely different than what the BJP followed during the May 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The recruitment of this task force is carefully planned and party general secretary Ram Lal is executing it in close coordination with the RSS. The RSS has an army of trusted lieutenants across the country and they will be loaned for a limited purpose and for limited period. The 15-day crash course will organised at the state level and different states will follow different period as per their convenience. But it will be Centrally monitored, controlled and fully funded operation. Earlier, the high command used to deploy its trusted persons in constituencies irrespective of the fact whether they are aware of the local customs and dialect and familiar with situation. The launch of Mission 2019 is a clear signal that the BJP is aware of the challenges ahead.
BJP needs Modi's Magic in Karnataka; desperately
Nothing is going right for BJP in Karnataka Assembly polls and a desperate leadership is pinning its hopes on carpet bombing by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to swing the balance in its favour. Until now, BJP president Amit Shah is campaigning and overseeing the poll strategies in the State and visiting one Mutt after the other to woo the Lingayats as well as Vokkalingas. There are as many as 700 Mutts in the state. But the state leadership is worried as Chief Minister Siddaramiah is gaining ground with the each passing day. Barring one, almost all Kannada TV channels have give an edge to the Congress. The BJP's handicap is that none of its national leaders can speak Kannada and its state leaders are a disunited lot. On the contrary, Rahul Gandhi has given the charge of the state to Siddharamiah and firmly told others to cooperate with him. He has consolidate his Dalit-OBC-Muslim vote bank while BJP is struggling to keep its 17% Lingayats together under Yeddyruppa and create a positive buzz. Modi has signaled that he will address around 15-18 rallies in the state after April 20 on his return from UK. The BJP leadership has requested the PM to help in swinging to mood of the people as two back-to-back surveys showed that the Congress is ahead in the electoral race. Most of the public rallies of the Prime Minister would be held at the district levels to touch the base with the voters and Modi will address at least two to three rallies in a day. Modi logged 24 rallies in the high-stake Uttar Pradesh elections last year, his best still remains 31 during the Bihar polls in 2015. In Tripura, Modi clocked four rallies. The BJP expects a swing of one to two per cent vote in the State to change its fortune and Modi's magic will do it.
Rs 100 crores booty and foot in the mouth !
A couple of months ago, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in close coordination with the Uttar Pradesh Police, recovered old currency notes estimated to be of the value of Rs 100 crore. The biggest ever haul in old currency notes created ripples and Central Intelligence agencies also swung into action. What worried the Centre most was that the recovery took place from Uttar Pradesh's industrial hub Kanpur. A team from the Reserve Bank of India and Income Tax department was also busy in reaching at the bottom of the truth for their own issues. The NIA seized the huge amount from a locked house and negotiators who promised to get these old notes exchanged were also arrested. The NIA went to town claiming that the money belonged to the terror groups. In fact, the amount was in two tranche; first being Rs 36 crores and then the remaining amount. However, within weeks all nine persons who were arrested, were released by the NIA quietly saying that it had nothing to do with the case as neither the amount and nor the persons were connected with any terror groups. It now transpires that first tip of the stashed money came to the NIA from one of its informers in J & K. The informer said that the amount is stashed in Kanpur. Elated by the tip-off the NIA raided the house with the help of the local police. But after investigations it surfaced that the money belonged to a political party and businessmen. The NIA retreated and no press release was issued either by the UP Police or the NIA. Cheers !
Modi's somersault on auctioning Coal, spectrum ?
Is the Modi government planning to dump the much-hyped policy of auctioning of natural resources ? If the statements by Coal Secretary Susheel Kumar and Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar are any indication, the auction policy may be a thing of the past. Susheel Kumar said that one cannot always think in terms of monetising revenues and has to keep the wider goals in mind. Niti Aayog Chairman Rajiv Kumar also echoed similar sentiments at a close-door conference. Talking to industry leaders, he said the government is rethinking its approach to spectrum auctions. He said, “this is the beginning of a process whereby you don’t try and always maximize government revenues … you may want to maximise development by bringing in greater benefits to citizens or to the private sector. He went on to say, “We have not done the famous spectrum sales during the financial year and there is a rethinking in the Government.” Instead of revenue, the government may want to maximise development by bringing in greater benefits to citizens and encourage private sector. The statements came as surprise as the UPA's policies on Coal and spectrum had brought down the Manmohan Singh government which had allocated the spectrum and coal mines based on first-come-basis. The CAG then had accused the government of incurring a “presumptive” loss of 1.76 lakh crore to the national exchequer because the spectrum were not auctioned. Similar allegations were leveled regarding the allocation of coal mines by the previous government and that was described as the coal scam. However, the somersault signals that rhetoric is being replaced by reality in the Modi government. The private sector groaning against the losses is failing to expand and therefore not able to return the huge loans it had borrowed from the banks which resulted in rising non-performing assets of the banks, bringing the banks to the point of bankruptcy.
