How Mulayam is failing Muslims for a bit of Modi magic
It is a million-dollar question to see how Samajwadi Party (SP) president Mulayam Singh Yadav gets closer to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government for his personal and political convenience and at the same time convinces the Muslims of UP, his core vote bank that this shift is for a right cause.
But it is a harsh truth that last Tuesday’s raids at 14 establishments of Yadav Singh, former chief engineer of Noida, Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway seems to have changed the flavour of national politics.
The CBI has leaked selectively that it has found the diary of Singh, who has mentioned about his Rs 2,000-crore illegal deals with the politicians in it. The observers believe that it is a tactical move of the Centre to give a message to the SP president how the case would unfold in future if he continued to stand by the Congress on the issue of logjam in Parliament over BJP leaders’ support to Lalit Modi.
But while the noose has been tightened around Mulayam on the one side, it has been relaxed on the other side simultaneously.
Sources in the government said that the IT department during its raids in November 2014 and the CBI on August 4, 2015 briefed the media off the record that it would be a multi-crore scam. Contrary to this, they have shown the recovery of only Rs 11.80 lakh from his and his cronies’ residences and offices.
The CBI has been reduced into an agency which works to save the central government. Imagine what will happen if the CBI conducts raids at 20 or 40 places in the state before Assembly elections and news starts leaking out that a scamster was linked to such and such ruling party leaders. It will leave an adverse impact on the voting pattern.
Last Tuesday’s raid was simply a message to SP and also to the BSP to understand the current or else get ready to be drowned,” said a government source. The 2,000-crore scam in which Singh is allegedly involved was committed between 2003 and 2014. Mulayam held the post of chief minister from 2003 to 2007 and his son Akhilesh Yadav is CM since 2012. In between, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati was CM from 2007 to 2012.
The observers said it was in this backdrop that while massive political activities were going on in New Delhi on last Tuesday to isolate the Congress on the issue of Lalit Modi, the CBI was conducting raids at Singh’s establishments in UP.
Besides ongoing trouble in Parliament, the Land Acquisition and Resettlement Amendment Bill is still a crucial issue for the Centre. It may have been put apparently on the back burner but it is no secret that the Centre is not able to give an impetus to developmental projects without having land bank. While enjoying majority in the Lok Sabha, the BJP is facing problem in the Rajya Sabha. It goes without saying that the SP with 15 MPs and the BSP with 10 MPs can be of great help to the BJP in marginalising the Congress.
Vijay Bahadur Singh, advocate general of UP is so angry with the Centre that he dubs the role of the CBI in former chief engineer’s case an attack on the federal structure of the country. “I call it an attack on the state by the Centre. Politics and an alleged case of corruption have been mixed with ulterior motive. We all know that the CBI is meant for arm-twisting on the direction of the Centre. The CBI raids these days are simply political decisions”, Singh further said.
That the CBI was not conducting raids with any intention to find something extraordinary to nab the former chief engineer and his friends became more than clear during its raids. The probe team reached Agra, at the ancestral house of Singh and Firozabad, his wife Kusum Lata’s house, without doing any homework. Such a reputed agency didn’t know that nobody was living there for the last many months. They exchanged pleasantries with Singh’s neighbours and returned with a smile.
“While all this was going on in Delhi, Mayawati sneaked silently into her abode whereas Mulayam unofficially agreed to convince the Congress leaders to let the business of the Parliament resume. Previously, all Opposition parties were rallying behind the Congress. Although Mulayam’s party is against suspension of 25 out of 44 MPs of the Congress, he wants the logjam to end soon for obvious reasons”, said a BJP MP on condition of anonymity.
Far away from this political hobnobbing, the minority is watching Mulayam’s posture carefully. “UP is completely under misrule of the SP. The community will never pardon Mulayam if he goes with the BJP,” said Kalbe Jawad, a Shia cleric.