Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Mr. Narendra Modi has taken over as the 15th Prime Minister of India on May 26 after President Pranab Mukherjee administered oath of office and secrecy on him and his colleagues in the Council of Ministers. He is now to start seriously with his avowed scheme of “minimum government, maximum governance”, so that the jargon could be practically understood.
People have not given him the mandate considering him as a paragon of virtues. They have just avenged the most irresponsible administration, which Manmohan Singh had subjected them to. And, in absence of any other national alternative, people have preferred Modi and his party.
So, notwithstanding what he means by “minimum government, maximum governance”, Modi is to take steps to save the country from many a mischief of Manmohan Singh for which the people of India have changed the government.
The new government shall have to review the decisions taken during Singh’s decade long administration that were designed against India and are continuing to threaten our present and future generations. As for example, the nuclear deal with USA.
The deal was designed not to serve India’s interests, but basically to give “bonanza “ to US firms” (Reuters, August 25, 2007).
Even as M. V. Ramana, a physicist and nuclear affairs analyst attached to the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development in Bangalore, maintained that the “ethnic Indian-American and U.S. business lobbies prevailed” in materializing the nuke deal, to Ron Somers, President as he then was of Indo-US Business Council, it laid “the foundation for major trade and investment opportunities in India for U.S. companies” (Inter Press Service, November 20, 2006)
Senator Joe Lieberman, known for his role in policy making and proximity to President Bush, was sure that the deal will get support of both the Houses of USA Congress because “it is so clearly in the interests of the United States” (Reuters, on August 12, 2007).
Convinced that the deal will only benefit USA, and hence, fearing that a future government of India may nullify it in Indian interest, the US Senate, while approving the ‘Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006’ on 9 December 2006 had laid down that the “Indian Parliament must agree to the text” of the said Act, so that the deal shall have legitimate interminable life (‘Insight Briefing’: World Nuclear News, 12 January 2007).
But without placing the “text” of the Hyde Act in the Parliament, rather keeping the Parliament in total dark about the said Act lest the Parliament disapproves its “text”, Manmohan Singh had told the Press during an informal chat during the swearing in ceremony of Vice-President Hamid Ansari that, the deal had become final and “non-negotiable” as it was already “signed” and “sealed” (ANI,11 August 2007).
Pranab Mukherjee was the most active and relevant partner of Singh in this crime against India.
Despite it becoming an international deal because of such treachery of Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee, it is terminable, because of the fact that the “text” of the Hyde Act was not discussed and approved by Indian Parliament, before it was, as per Singh, “signed“ and “sealed”.
This deal has created the necessary environment to destroy India’s nuke independence that our scientists had developed with our own Thorium mother Nature has given us in abundance. The deal Manmohan Singh signed is not a trade deal; it is a “cooperation” deal and legitimatizes transfer of Thorium and the method of nuclear fuel cycle that our scientists had developed with our own Thorium to overcome the USA-led nuke boycott we were facing.
In fact, after the deal, within a period of six years, Thorium worth Rs.60 lakh-crores has been plundered (Times Now, 4 September 2013).
If Modi is really serious about giving a good governance, this mischief is to be exterminated and the deal signed by Manmohan Singh is to be scrapped and the former Prime Minister is to be subjected to criminal prosecution for the foul play he played against India at the behest of USA. But in this matter, the most discernible ally of the former PM was Pranab Mukherjee. The nation should be helped to ascertain his responsibility.
The UPA-II government was noted for mega scams involving thousands of lakhs of crores of rupees and for having reduced the country to a safe place for economic crimes. From Rs.1,76,000 crore 2G spectrum scam to ISRO – Devas S-Band transponders scam that caused, till location, a loss of Rs.2,00,000 crores to the exchequer; from Tatra to Chopper scams involving about Rs.825 crores in the area of defense deal; from Coal scam to the tune of Rs. 1, 86,000 crores to loss of Rs.20,000 crores to exchequer in Sarada group chit fund scam and Rs.11,000 crores in Vodafone tax offense, Manmohan Singh government’s footprints also bear the stamps of Pranab Mukherjee as his closest ally.
Prime Minister Modi has addressed his cabinet to issue of black money, in its first meeting. And, soon, if he is sincere in his mission of the yet undefined “maximum governance”, action will begin against the perpetrators of the scams, samples aforesaid.
This may be very embarrassing to Mr. Mukherjee.
Be it so or not, to ensure that the inquiries into and actions against the scams are free of possible higher influence, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee should voluntarily vacate the President’s chair and help the people’s mandate matter.