BJP’S SCAM AS NDA – A REFRESHMENT OF BJP’S SCAM LIST
Here is the list of scam, performed by BJP and their partners just 9 years ago:
1. Tehelka.com, a website run by investigative journalism enthusiast showed BJP’s then president Bangaru Laxman taking bundles of cash as bribe
2. UTI – United Trust of India, now doing business as Axis Bank, lost its money putting investors to the verge of loosing their money. Though the funds was managed well in UTI64, scam hit during NDA regime which created the loss. Few thousand crore money involved. The US-64 scheme had 2 crore investors, the bulk of whom were small savers, retired people, widows and pensioners. In 1998, the UTI crashed, and the BJP-led NDA government scrambled to organise Rs. 3,500 crore bail-outs to UTI. The capital of UTI fell by 33% from 75,000 crores to 50,000 crores, making this a 25,000 crores scam. Additionally public faith in financial institutions was completely eroded. In a global recession such a mistake would be catastrophic, it would retard and hamper the country’s chances of recovery turning it into a full blown crisis.
3. BJP leader Sushma Swaraj and her close friendship with Reddy brothers, who are considered to be mining mafia in Andhra – Karnataka states is a known fact. She was considered as God mother for Reddy brothers.
4. Soon after assuming office in 1999, the NDA government embarked on a full-scale privatisation programme, offering controlling stake in government-owned companies to “strategic partners”. Starting in January 2000, in less than two and a half years, the government sold controlling stake in nine companies, apart from 19 hotels at various locations belonging to the India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC). The government earned Rs.5,544 crores from the strategic sale of the nine enterprises. Every single instance was controversial and initiated protests from the unions. The unions not only feared for workers’ jobs but alleged that the units were being sold for a song.
5. BALCO SCAM: – Complete erosion of public money in the name of ‘disinvestment’. – The aluminium giant where missiles such as ‘Agni’ and ‘Prithvi’ were shaped, was sold to Sterlite company for a paltry sum of Rs.551 crore at a time when the assets alone were worth Rs.5,000-6,000 crore.
6. Gujarat Cooperative Bank Scam 2003: – In Gujarat, the Narendra Modi Government had to pay out Rs. 870 Crore to small investors after the Gujarat Bank Scam of 2003 which led to the closure of 9 cooperative banks and 17 other being declared sick. – The administrator of the crisis-ridden Panchamahal District Co-operative Bank even registered a complaint against Gujarat Minister of State Prabhatsinh Chauhan and 28 others, alleging their involvement in the embezzlement of Rs 124 crore (Rs 1.24 billion) from the bank
7. Centaur Hotel Scam: – In June 2002, the 288-room Centaur Hotel near Mumbai’s domestic airport was sold by the Hotel Corporation of India to Batra Hospitality, for Rs 83 crore. – *Within four months*, Batra Hospitality sold off the hotel property to the Sahara group *for Rs 115 crore, raking in a 35% profit*. – This leads to the inescapable conclusion that the bidding process of the hotel was blatantly rigged in favour of A. L. Batra, an industrialist with close ties to the RSS. – Validating the above theory, the Comptroller and Auditor General, in its report-2004, expressed *serious doubts on the methods used by the NDA government for computing the valuation of the underlying assets* in the matter of disinvestment of Centaur Hotel. CAG stated that the Government had *suffered a loss of rupees 145.69 crores in revenue in the sale of Centaur Hotel.
8. Cybertron Technopolis Scam: • Another scam of Atal Behari Vajpayee Government relates to laying the foundation stone of a Software Technology Park, named as ‘Cybertron Technopolis’ by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. *The park was promoted by the same Johri brothers who were benefited by the UTI scam*. • The RSS man who facilitated this was Pradeep Narayan Mathur, who is a trustee of Vishwa Samvad Kendra in Lucknow and a senior member of VHP. *The Rajnath Singh government in UP collaborated in the venture by becoming a partner of the proposed IT park*. • Since the company had the blessings of the Prime Minister, the innocent public invested heavily in the company. • Evidence of the suspicious and ill-thought out nature of the venture: currently the promoter, Arvind Johri is under investigation by the CBI.
This is a grossly incomplete list. Even Kargil coffin scam has been excluded.
