Ramdev has declared his assets, let the media probe into the countless Nehru-Gandhi trusts and their sources of funds now
Ramdev has been fair and square. He has put up the details of the financial status of his trusts on his site and also asked the media to get the details of the corporate entities associated with him from the Registrar of Companies; in case it still has any queries, it can come for further clarifications to him. His associate Balakrishna has supplied his passport copies to the media as well.
It is time for the TV News channels to stop badgering and hounding them on these issues. If they continue to do so, it will mean they are back to playing their old pro-establishment games under instructions from their big bosses. One also wonders as to why instead of putting the corrupt and self-serving establishment under the scanner, the media goes after those who wage a fight against it. Why does it not demand the proof of wrongdoing from a wily, scheming and bastardised accuser, a third-class politician like Digvijay Singh?
Compare the behaviour of the media towards someone like Sonia Gandhi vis-à-vis the way it treats Ramdev. They are extremely respectful towards her. Why? Is it because she speaks English and is Italian born and is whiter than the whitest of the Indian elite?
If they don’t find Ramdev dignified enough because of his humble background, let me tell them about the ugly tantrums Indira Gandhi threw when she went out of power in 1977. She was picked up for questioning by the police and while being taken away in the police car that had to stop at a railway crossing, she ran out of it and sat on the railway track, and started crying, beating her chest, and creating ugly scenes. She lost all her dignity once out of power and behaved like a cantankerous and quarrelling slum woman.
It is strange and baffling that the Supreme Court or the media, or the investigating agencies have never subjected the Nehru-Gandhi family to serious questioning and probe in spite of grave charges of corruption against it. Kanimozhi can be questioned and even arrested; Sonia Gandhi cannot in spite of being a part of the deal to install A. Raja as a Cabinet minister in charge of the Telecom portfolio. Why has the CBI exonerated Radia and the Tatas?
Why couldn’t it see the obvious nexus between intense lobbying by an industrial group for the appointment of a favourite person as a minister and his eventual appointment? Was Ratan Tata paying Radia to lobby for Raja out of a sense of altruism? Was the appointment of Raja not the beginning of the 2G telecom scam? And why are Sonia and Manmohan not culpable for the crime of appointing Raja under the influence of lRadia, Barkha Dutt, Singhvi and the rest who openly claimed proximity to 10 Janpath?
And why do we ignore the fact that these lobbyists were being paid by a telecom operator (the TATAs) who finally cornered quite a few 2G and 3G licenses after Raja became the Minister of Telecom? Such circumstantial evidence would have been enough in countries like the USA and the UK and Canada to initiate criminal proceedings and penal action against those involved.
The media hounds should be rushing to 10 Janpath now and barking at Sonia Gandhi’s doors to disclose the financial dealings of all the Nehru-Gandhi trusts and the sources of their funding. They should also make enquiries about how much money or property was gifted directly and indirectly to these trusts by the various Congress governments, corporate entities, and individuals, and what its value is today and if these trusts have really done anything worthwhile except keeping the Congress loyalists in good health. We must also know the names of their trustees.
The media should also investigate the money allegedly earned by the Nehru-Gandhi family and the Congress party by acting as intermediaries for various export orders from Communist Russia, and other countries, that were generally routed through them. They should also delve deep into how much money the family made by acting as an intermediary in oil imports from Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s regime. Please note, all this money is probably parked in the trusts managed by the family or else in Swiss banks. This must be investigated to clear the good names of the Nehrus and the Gandhis, and Sonia, the Italian mother India.
In fact, we should also be allowed to have a peep at Rahul Gandhi’s passport. There have been Internet buzz that his name actually is some Raul Robert or whatever. We tend to dismiss such buzz as rumours. Even the well-known fact of today that trillions of dollars of Indian money is parked in Swiss banks started off like that. If Ramdev can be investigated, Sonia Gandhi and her family should be investigated with greater vigour and zeal for once. Vajpayee could have done that, but long stay in Delhi’s corridors of power had completely desensitised him to the issue of corruption. The peace-loving poet did not want to stir the beehive and thus lost his opportunity to expose the true nature of the queen bee of the Congress party.
So far, the focus of the media, the opposition, and the anti-corruption crusaders has been on the telecom sector and CWG. We must also look at the key departments and ministries under the Congress ministers. Let us see if they have done any favours for pecuniary benefits accruing to any of the institutions connected with Sonia and her brood, the trusts managed by and for the Nehru-Gandhi family, and the industrialists who are close to the family and Congress leaders.
Let us investigate the modus operandi of granting government contracts, licenses, and permits involving billions of dollars in important ministries like Defence, Aviation, Coal, Railways, Commerce and Industry, Mines & Metals, Infrastructure, and Petroleum. And you will see how the skeletons come tumbling out of their cupboards causing the collapse of the corrupt Government.
And before we examine the ownership of the non-profit Aastha and Sanskar channels, let us first investigate the ownership of news channels like NDTV, CNN IBN, STAR NEWS, 9 X, News 24. What are their sources of funds and if some of the money that has been sustaining these loss-making enterprises is coming through the Mauritius route?
Why should the media owners be excluded from the ambit of the anti-corruption crusade? There have been allegations that the Catholic Church, clandestinely supported by western powers and multi-national corporations (MNCs), funds some of these channels and uses them to prop up the Sonia and Manmohan regime.
Let Rajdeep Sirdesai and Pranoy Roy be subjected to some serious questioning too. We must know about their relationship, personal and business, with the Nehru-Gandhi family and the Congress party and the Church.
RKS
