by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Modi wants all CMs at Patel Statue Unveiling Event 

BJP rushed to placate Nitish Kumar 

Efforts to bring Naveen Patnaik too  Uddhav Thackeray disincline : 20 BJP CMs in toe 

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, Oct 29

Prime Minister Narendra Moi is working hard to ensure the presence of Chief Ministers of all the states at unveiling of 'Statue of Unity' dedicated to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, on October 31 in Gujrat.

Modi wants to tout the ceremony as symbol of unity of the country and is in touch with every chief minister and top leaders of parties to be present when the statue is unveiled.

So keen was Modi to ensure the presence of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at the venue that he directed BJP Chief Amit Shah to seal the Lok Sabha seat sharing deal with JD (U). Shah rushed to Delhi cutting short his election campaign and made huge concessions.

As Modi wanted that all the NDA CMs be present at the statue of unity-- the BJP has its own band of 20 and it wanted nitish kumar, KCR, Palaniswamy and even. Nitish was unwilling to come.

Gujrat's senior-most Minister Saurabh Patel sought time from Nitish Kumar to invite him for the unveiling ceremony 20 days ago. But Nitish Kumar excused saying that he was traveling. The BJP was informally conveyed if the presence of Nitish is required, the seat sharing issue be settled. Similar efforts are on the persuade Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao to travel to Gujrat to be part of this unity.

Modi is also keen to ensure the presence of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the venue. The BJP leadership has also conveyed to Patnaik that its not keen to disturb his apple cart.

PM Modi made it clear to the Chief Ministers of non-BJP states that is not a party function and its dedicated to the country’s tallest leader who unified India 70 years ago.

The efforts are also being made to ensure the presence of Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray at the venue. When contacted, Sanjay Raut, Shive speokeman and Rajya Sabha MP said, “We are busy in the Ram Temple movement beginning November 25.  

Barring Capt Amrinder Singh (Punjab), Chandrababu Naidu (Andhra Pradesh), Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal) and Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi), V Narayansami (Puducherry) Chief Ministers and Governor of Jammu & Kashmir are expected to attend the ceremony.

The statue touted to be the world’s tallest statue, will have a viewing gallery at the height of 193 metres from the sea level which can accommodate 200 visitors at a time. The security & intelligence agencies are making every effort to check the safety of all the VVIPs together at one place at such a height.

Nearly 3,400 labourers and 250 engineers worked round-the-clock at the site of the statue at Sadhu Bet island on Narmada river. The 182-metre tall statue will be unveiled on the birth anniversary of Sardar Patel. The statue has been built at a cost of Rs. 2,389 crores. Modi had laid the foundation stone for the project on October 31, 2013 when he was the chief minister of Gujarat.

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Modi sends 8 top officers to Maharashtra, Goa

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Pre-poll push for PM's schemes

Modi sends 8 top officers to Maharashtra, Goa

Officers to camp at 8 districts

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, Oct 27

Eight senior officers of the rank of additional secretaries and joint secretaries are being deputed shortly by the Prime Minister to Maharashtra & Goa to camp in eight clusters to over-see welfare work 8 clusters.

These officers have been identified and will be sent to these eight districts after under-going training program. These officers will be deputed Pune, Nashik, Dhule, Sangli, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Thane and North Goa. These senior IAS officers will camp in these aspirational districts to over-see the implementation of Prime Minister Modi's welfare schemes.

The PM plans to depute nearly 750 officers of the Centre who will be tasked in coming months to cover 45,000 villages in 115 ‘aspirational districts’ with seven government schemes. The scheme is being closely monitored by the Prime Minister’s Office.

An officer has been designated for every 75 villages and each has been tasked to undertake at least three visits to the village spanning four seven days. While each district has been assigned a ‘prabhari officer’ in a joint or an additional secretary role, 322 directors and deputy secretary officers and another 322 under-secretaries have been assigned the jobs of ‘nodal officers’. Four to 10 such nodal officers have been tagged with each prabhari officer, who will assign villages for tour scheduling and coordinate the visits of nodal officers. In the first phase, 80 officers have been chosen who will visit 80 districts spanning over several states.

The government is also set to announce a package of benefits for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) spread across these 80 districts. They will monitor social security benefits for workers

The scheme is part of Modi's pre-election push for the MSME sector which employs over a 120 million people in over 6 crores units. The list of clusters range from food processing units to steel ancillary, to Pharma and other sectors in these seven districts of Maharashtra and one in Goa. They will work with officers from banks, EPFO, ECIS, SIDBI to ensure that targets are met. The officers will see whether these units have been trained to get the benefits of government's e-marketplace (GeM) portal.

This will help them to ensure that government and its agencies can buy directly from the small units.

Dragging RAW sealed Verma’s fate

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Dragging RAW sealed Verma’s fate 

RAW Chief told PM: Sir, better we shut down ! We are exposed by our own agency

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, Oct 28

Dragging Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), country’s premier external intelligence agency, in the turf war dug CBI Director Alok Verma’s grave on the early hours of Tuesday last.

Highly placed sources say that the Prime Minister was seething with anger with Alok Verma after he exposed RAW’s secret operations in Dubai to settle scores with his Special Director Rakesh Asthana.

No doubt, the government was upset with Verma for the past many months for declaring an open war with  Asthana and even registered an FIR against him.

But his fate was sealed the moment he made RAW’s number 2  Sumant Kumar Goel's name public  in the Asthana case . All hell broke in the top echelon of the Modi government as Sumant Kumar Goel is a highly rated officer. He is in the line of being made RAW chief after current chief retires in December. Verma named Goel in the FIR though not as an accused. An angry RAW chief Anil Dhasmana rushed to the Prime Minister on Sunday -October 21 and told him “Sir its better we shut down the RAW. Our entire operations in Dubai have been exposed by our own agency, our men are in danger ! How can we deliver?”  Dhasmana told the PM that Sumant Kumar Goel was once Dubai’s RAW head. He also told that Mahesh Prasad and Somesh Prasad are the sons of former RAW Director R R Prasad. He was once head of RAW operations in Dubai. Mahesh Prasad is an Investment banker while Somesh Prasad runs his own company. Both the brothers used to help RAW whenever needed and provide vital information. They were in touch with  Sumant Kumar Goel who  was RAW’s operations head in Dubai once.

The problem began when Asthana recorded a statement of a Hyderabad businessman Satish Babu Sana to allege that he had paid a bribe of Rs 2 crores to Alok Verma to go-slow in the Moin Qureshi case. He sent the complaint to the CVC against Verma. But Sana took a U-turnsoon and confessed  before a Magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC that he paid a bribe of Rs 2.95 crore to Asthana’s middlemen Manoj Prasad and Somesh Prasad to get relief in the Moin Qureshi case. Sana is an accused in the Moin Qureshi case. 

The government avoided any precipitated action and tried to solve the  issue with dialogue even at this late stage. But the moment Verma named Sumant Kumar Goel in the FIR and said that  Mahesh Prasad is being probed for his alleged hawala links as well as connections with certain R&AW officials, all hell broke. The naming of RAW's  number 2 sealed Verma's fate.

 

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Midnight coup in CBI,

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Midnight coup in CBI,

PM sends Director, No. 2 packing finally,

Junior-most Nageshwar Rao made Director

Verma goes to court, Asthana sulks

New Delhi, Oct 24

It was a midnight coup at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) headquarters never witnessed before when the newly appointed director, M Nageshwar Rao landed there  accompanied by a police convoy to take charge.

The 1986 Odisha cadre officer who hails from Telangana, headed the 11^th floor office of Alok Verma to take charge. There was no one to give him the charge as all top bosses had been sent on forced leave by the government on the recommendations of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).

When Verma and his number two Rakesh Asthana went to the CBI headquarters in the morning, they were stopped from entering. While Verma went to the Supreme Court to challenge his ouster, Rakesh Asthana went home sulking. The SC will hear the case on Friday.

The Cabinet Committee of Appointment (ACC) headed by the Prime Minister had issued the order at 11.45 pm yesterday asking Rao to take over the “duties and functions of CBI director with immediate effect.” The decision was taken by the PM at 11.30 pm and the file was sent by hand to the residence of Home Minister Rajnath Singh who is also a member of the ACC. Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in the PMO, had asked Rao earlier to be ready to leave for an important assignment at a short notice. He had no clue what that assignment will be. But all hell broke within the next 30 minutes when the official order was put out making him the new director during the period of “subsistence.” Interestingly, there is no order till now on the website of the DoPT divesting Alok Verma of the charge of the CBI and sending him on leave. However, Alok Verma and Rakesh Asthana were informed about their "compulsory leave" through official messengers.

In a bizarre move, the police personnel of the Delhi Police cordoned off the CBI building at 12.30 am and around 1.45 am, M Nageswar Rao came escorted by a police convoy to take charge. The stories that Rao sealed Verma's office are baseless as all the files are being scanned in the room. A new team of officers has been deputed to probe all pending cases. Nageshwar Rao removed Verma's most trusted officer Additional Director A K Sharma from all the cases. Manish Sinha who is Sharma's junior was also sent packing.

It now transpires that K V Chowdary, Chief Vigilance Commissioner, held a marathon meeting on Tuesday with his two colleagues; Sharad Kumar and M K Bhasin and sent their recommendation to the PM that both the top officers be sent on compulsory leave immediately. 

Chowdary had been asked by the Prime Minister's Office last week to step after efforts to find a solution by NSA Ajit Doval and deputy Principal Secretary P K Mishra failed. It may be mentioned that Nageswar Rao had joined the CBI in 2016 as joint director before his stunning rise as its interim director.

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Verma sacked on What's App,

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Lokmat Exclusive

Verma sacked on What's App,

top IB officials searched his office,

Took away hard discs, files photo copies

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, Oct. 25

Murky details of midnight coup at the CBI headquarters revealed that its Director Alok Verma was sacked on What's App of his mobile as 1 am yesterday.

The sack order was sent through What's App as an officer of the Department of Personnel under the Prime Minister failed to deliver it physically at Verma's residence at 12.55 am. The security guards posted at Verma's Janpath residence refused to receive the letter saying that the “Saheb has gone to bed.”

Without delivering the sack order, everything would have come to a grinding halt. M Nageshwar Rao could not have taken over as acting chief of the CBI, there would have been no en-mass transfers and no search & seize operation of Verma and his officers premises.

Everybody in the government, right from the PM downwards to National Security Adviser Ajit Doval to deputy principal secretary P K Mishra to Lok Ranjan, additional secretary in the DoPT who signed the actual sack order were keeping their finger crossed in their offices.

Finally, Ajit Doval told Lok Ranjan in the DoPT to send the sack order on what's app. Lok Ranjan didn't have his mobile and that too was provided by the PMO. And fortunately for the government, Verma opened his mobile phone and saw the what's app message. The moment, Lok Ranjan saw the blue lines blinking, the sack order was considered as delivered.

The entire machinery swung into action and a team of eight officers of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) rushed to the CBI headquarters and took control of the two floors where top officers used to work. Even Nageshwar Rao who was made the acting Director was told politely to stay put in his room after a brief visit to Verma's chamber on 11^th floor. The importance of the raid could be gauged from the fact that an officer of the rank of the additional secretary was heading it. They took out hard disks of verma's computers, made photocopies of all the files in his room and sniffed every paper trail. Similarly, another group of officers scanned all the files and computers of A K Bassi, deputy SP who had raided and arrested his another DSP colleague Devender Kumar two days ago. The offices of A K Sharma, Joint Director (Policy) was also thoroughly searched. No one in the CBI was allowed to enter the two floors of the CBI building until the IB sleuths left the place.

It is still a mystery as to what the IB was searching for. Contrary to reports, the government was not unduly worried about the Rafale probe issue as Verma had sent the papers to A K Sharma. These papers were given to the CBI by Prashant Bhushan and routinely sent to Sharma.

But the fact that all hard disks of computers of all these transferred officers was taken away by the IB shows that it was sniffing at something else. It may also be mentioned that A K Sharma who is also a Gujrat cadre IPS officer and trusted lieutenant of PM Modi was only divested of the crucial policy division and not shunted out of Delhi. He has been retained in Delhi as head of the defunct MDMA which is probing Rajiv Gandhi assassination case for 27 years. Why he chose to side with Verma instead of Rakesh Asthana is still a mystery.

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