Fly on the Wall | Modi’s baffling gift to Yogi

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Modi’s baffling gift to Yogi

The nomination of A K Sharma, Prime Minister Modi’s most trusted bureaucrat, as BJP MLC in UP continues to baffle the political class. Sharma was among Modi’s inner circle of officers when he was Chief Minister of Gujrat in 2001. Be it P K Mishra, K Kailashnathan, J C Murmu, R K Asthana, A K Sharma etc, they were all part of Modi’s CMO. When Modi moved to Delhi in 2014, a battery of around 12 officers moved along. But Modi decided to keep K Kailashnathan in Ahmedabad itself as Anandiben Patel’s CMO. The status of KK, as Kailashnathan is known in the bureaucratic fraternity, didn’t change even after Vijay Rupani took over as CM. KK was Chief Principal Secretary of Modi in 2013 and remains so in 2021 irrespective of who is CM, Gujrat. He is considered “Saheb’s proxy” because Modi talks only to KK and the wheels of administration move accordingly. PK Mishra replaced Nripendra Mishra as Principal Secretary in the PMO and RK Asthana continues to be a powerful IPS officer. J C Murmu was made Lieutenant Governor of Jammu & Kashmir to be Modi’s eyes & ears in Srinagar. But somehow, he could not pass the muster and was brought back to Delhi as CAG. Therefore, the shifting of A K Sharma being sent to UP for a political inning is baffling given Modi's style of functioning. No one in the BJP handling UP affairs was willing to throw any light as to how A K Sharma was chosen as MLC? Who proposed his name? And why did Modi lend his most-trusted officer to UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath? If he was most trusted, then why was he ousted from the PMO in the first place in 2020?

Another KK in Lucknow?

It is no secret that Yogi Adityanath is on his trip in UP and not like other BJP Chief Ministers who pay obeisance to political masters. Insiders in the BJP say that Karnataka CM B S Yediyurappayu is another pain in the neck of the party high command. Yogi doesn’t take the call of many senior leaders. The Central high command was also upset after Yogi Adityanath cut Sunil Bansal, the unquestioned king of Lucknow to run the affairs, to size.

Lately, there have been issues relating to handling crimes in the state and law & order problem, the latest being the Hathras case. Many complain that Yogi has not risen from caste-politics either despite being a loner, unmarried and honest. One school of thought is that it was Yogi who requested the high command to give him a competent person as he doesn’t trust his two deputy Chief Ministers. A K Sharma hails from Azamgarh and can play some role. No one is sure if Nitin Gadkari had a role in Sharma’s going to UP because he worked under him in the MSME as Secretary. No final word has come out about the future role of MLC AK Sharma. Will he be another KK in Lucknow?

Nadda’s rising clout

BJP president J P Nadda is back in action and batting on the front foot in West Bengal polls. He played a key role in the selection of seven Union Ministers who were made incharge of seven regions for Assembly polls. Obviously, Nadda's graph has risen after big Bihar won. Only recently, a couple of Chief Ministers of BJP ruled states wanted to call on the PM. But Modi politely conveyed to them to first apprise “Nadda ji” about the issues. Another major change jolted the party when three posts of joint general secretaries (Organisation) were discarded. Is RSS allowing a free hand to Nadda and General secretary (Organisation) B L Santosh? One will have to watch.

Why Govt doesn't communicate

Be it farm laws or any other issue, the Modi government’s bane is it to rush into decisions and lacking in communication. The classic example is of giving Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to Bharat Biotech’s Covaxine without phase-III trial data. It was alleged that the government had rushed into giving preferred treatment violating rules and risking lives of people. But no one, not even the IMCR, Drug Controller General of India or even the Health ministry said that the rules for EMA were amended way back in March 2019, a year before the Covid break out. The policy was changed by regulators to give EUA for vaccines without waiting for phase-III trial results. No favours were shown to Covaxine per se. When controversy engulfed the scientific community, the rules were dug out from the grave.

Fly on the Wall : BJP's Mission- 2019: Task Force In Place

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.

Cong did out-of-the-box thinking to make money'

Exclusive Interview
with Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar 

By Harish Gupta (National Editor-Lokmat) Excerpts:

Q: You said the Defence was worst performing sector under UPA, from negative growth you brought it up to zero and now moving up?

A: What I said was that decisions were not being taken in time. I don't want to discuss the past. You only have to look into the reports what CAG has said. You will know everything. Country knows it.

Q: How many projects got delayed like the Nalanda Ordinance Factory?

A: You see when decisions are not taken, projects will be delayed. The CAG said how critically required arms and ammunitions were not made available.

Grammar of Anarchy

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not literally correct when he told the TIME magazine in a recent interview that the Indian Constitution is his “only holy book”. The trouble with holy books is that once written they cannot be changed, and, if changed, a new religion is born. But Constitutions are liable to change. Modi is now struggling to amend the Constitution for legislating Goods and Services Tax (GST). It will not only make taxes by and large uniform across the states and UTs but should give the first stamp of confirmation on US President Barack Obama’s description of Modi, in TIME’s earlier issue listing the world’s most powerful men, as India’s “reformer-in-chief”.