{"id":211,"date":"2019-03-30T09:47:13","date_gmt":"2019-03-30T09:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/?p=211"},"modified":"2019-04-20T10:32:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-20T10:32:00","slug":"upa-makes-corruption-cause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/upa-makes-corruption-cause\/","title":{"rendered":"The UPA makes corruption a cause"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arun Jaitley<\/strong><\/p>\n

O<\/strong>n 28th March, 2019, an unprecedented protest took place in Bengaluru.\u00a0\u00a0 Holding party flags, JDS and Congress leaders assembled outside the Income Tax Office to protest against income tax searches with a political motivation.\u00a0 They alleged that Ministers had been searched.\u00a0 The best evidence they could provide for was that the \u201cNephew\u201d of a Minister was searched.\u00a0 In an unprecedented move the Chief Minister and Ministers of the State decided to join the protest.<\/p>\n

What actually happened?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The tax authorities in Bengaluru had issued a press statement.\u00a0 The statement categorically said no MP, MLA, Minister was searched.<\/p>\n

The search was not against any politician or even political workers.\u00a0 The search was only against Contractors and Engineers of the PWD Department of the State.\u00a0 This has categorically appeared in the media.\u00a0\u00a0 If no Politician has been searched, no Minister has been searched, then why the protest?<\/p>\n

The needle of suspicion<\/strong><\/p>\n

The disproportionality of the reaction of the Congress and the JDS raises a needle of suspicion.\u00a0 Why the Chief Minister and the Ministers be seen raising slogans on the streets when corrupt Contractors and Engineers are being searched?\u00a0 Was the Minister\u2019s Nephew a PWD Contractor to whom largesses have been given \u2013 a case of nepotism?\u00a0 There is a lurking suspicion due to the disproportionality of the reaction that the protestors were more concerned with regard to the \u201csubstance\u201d of the search.\u00a0\u00a0 Did they have a vicarious pecuniary interest in the substance?\u00a0 Is it a case where the PWD Department pays the Contractors, the Engineers being the collecting agents and the principals of the agents turn protestors?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 These questions have to be answered by the Chief Minister and all the Cabinet Ministers who joined the protest.<\/p>\n

Is the States\u2019 attitude a threat to federalism?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Federalism is not merely the Rights of the States. Indian federalism entails India as a \u201cUnion of States\u201d.\u00a0 The Rights of the Union are equally important.\u00a0 Security of India, sovereignty, dealing with terrorism, managing the borders, Custom Check Points, Income Tax enforcement are all amongst the several Constitutional powers of the Union.\u00a0 If the States stand in way of any of them it is guilty of breaching federal norms.\u00a0 Can a State barge its Police into the Customs area and direct the Customs as to what is to be done?\u00a0 This would be a threat to federalism.\u00a0 Many States have stopped giving Police security to Income Tax authorities when they conduct their operations.\u00a0 Alternatively when State Police is asked for, the information is leaked out to the political Government and it reaches the targets of the operations.\u00a0 Tax authorities increasingly have to rely on Central Forces.\u00a0 In the Kashmir Valley recently, searches have conducted under the Governor\u2019s Rule after 17 years.\u00a0 These taxes are meant for the welfare of the poor in India.<\/p>\n

The above illustrates a text book method of the UPA on 2 fronts: use Government money, round trip it through Contractors and beneficiaries and enrich themselves.<\/p>\n

The second is lip sympathy for federalism and destroy it whenever the opportunity arises.<\/p>\n

This is a very transparent self goal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arun Jaitley On 28th March, 2019, an unprecedented protest took place in Bengaluru.\u00a0\u00a0 Holding party flags, JDS and Congress leaders assembled outside the Income Tax Office to protest against income tax searches with a political motivation.\u00a0 They alleged that Ministers had been searched.\u00a0 The best evidence they could provide for was that the \u201cNephew\u201d of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":707,"featured_media":141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[235,181,234,233],"class_list":["post-211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political","tag-cause","tag-corruption","tag-makes","tag-the-upa"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/707"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions\/270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}