The True face of the Congress Party

Off with his head
Tavleen Singh
Mar 20, 2011

Last week, when it was announced that there were plans afoot to set income tax sleuths on to those who invest in Gujarat, my first reaction was disbelief. Surely not, I thought, not when foreign investors are fleeing India in droves, not when the Reserve Bank has itself pointed out ominously that foreign direct investment in India has dropped by nearly 40 per cent in recent months. Why would a prime minister whose expertise lies in the field of economics allow such insanity to go ahead?

The reasons could most certainly not be economic, so I started searching for political reasons and realisation quickly dawned. Narendra Modi has long been seen by political pundits in Delhi, especially those of Congress persuasion, as the only man who could in 2014 challenge their glamorous young prince and so he must be destroyed. Besides he has been flying too high for his own good, has he not? Always holding those conventions to boast about ‘vibrant’ Gujarat and always making jokes about the Congress Party that the silly old ‘aam aadmi’ laughs his head off at without noticing that they are laughing on the same side as a merchant of death, a ‘maut ka saudagar’. Remember when the financial scandals started falling out of the central government’s cupboard at so alarming a rate and how he made that speech in which he said ‘munni badnaam hui’. How dare he? Who did he mean? The Congress Party or she who leads it? So off with his head.

Not easily done politically because somehow he has managed, wretched man, to keep winning elections (with even Muslims voting for him), so someone in Delhi came up with the cunning plan to destroy him economically. Ordering income tax raids on political opponents is an old Congress practice that was used recklessly and with powerful effect by first

Mrs Gandhi during the Emergency and then again by V P Singh when he was Rajiv’s finance minister. He went too far, though, because he started to raid Rajiv’s friends and so he had to go. But to get back to Gujarat. Under that ‘maut ka saudagar’, its economy has climbed to dizzying heights. Even a casual visitor can see the speed at which roads get built, the availability of electricity in remote villages, the check dams that help irrigate areas that have never seen irrigation, the primary health centres that actually work. Investors see much more. They see an administration that is less corrupt than most and a chief minister who fulfills his promises. If he tells you that he will make land available to you in a week, he ensures that this happens, and if he promises a single window to clear your projects, he delivers.

These are not things that Congress chief ministers can do because their primary concern is to ensure that the ‘high command’ is kept happy by regular and large infusions into the coffers of the party. They can get away with no governance at all as long as they do this. Then they have to ensure that they pay regular obeisance to the party’s ruling Dynasty and by the time all this is over, there is little time for doing anything else. So the best governed states in India are those that are not run by Congress chief ministers and the only way to keep them in check is to curb them in every possible way. If it is income tax raids in Gujarat, it is unwieldy schemes like the NREGA in Bihar. You see when the central government puts in place a scheme like this then the state government loses some of its own control over funds and welfare policies. They regularly complain about this but their complaints fall on deaf ears because this is an area in which Sonia Gandhi and her cabinet, the National Advisory Council, are personally interested.

The end result is that India, so glittering, so full of allure only six months ago, is now beginning to look like it did before economic liberalisation. It is beginning to look like a dangerous country to invest in and in this bleak scenario there is Gujarat that has so far continued to shine like a beacon where foreign and Indian investors are concerned. This cannot be allowed to happen because it makes the rest of India look even worse than it already does. Besides, we all know that Narendra Modi is an evil man, a merchant of death, so who cares if all his efforts to make Gujarat rich and prosperous are endangered by famously corrupt income tax inspectors. Of course, there is the small problem that the people of Gujarat may suffer as well but since they have been regularly rejecting Congress at election time who cares about them. Off with their heads as well.

I had thought of writing earlier about the income tax raids on Gujarat, but I felt it would be better if I put up a piece by some other well known personality.
The Congress party is ruling in a number of states riddled in corruption where nobody wants to invest.
Bihar and Gujarat are two states not ruled by the Congress which set an example of corruption free government.
How could the congress accept anyone comparing their corrupt states with these efficient.
The congress has in the past used the CBI and the ED and Income Tax departments to harass their opponents.
They are once again up to their old dirty tricks.
But the people have seen through their clumsy efforts.