oppn parties Action Against Opposition Politicians: Only Fast-Track Cases And Convictions Will Justify The Government's Stand

News Snippets

  • Supreme Court dismisses industry bodies' plea to stop the SBI from disclosing the numbers of the electoral bonds
  • NDA finalizes seat sharing in Bihar - BJP 17, JD(U) 16 aqnd LJP 5
  • Election Commission removes Home secretaries of Gujarat, UP, Bihar, HP, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand and the DGP of Bengal
  • Telangana governor Tamilsai Soundararajan resigned from his post and is likely to contest for the BJP from Chennai
  • ED claims K Kavitha of the BRS paid Kejriwal and Sisodia Rs 100cr in the alleged liquor scam in Delhi. AAP says this is a ploy to malign their names
  • Supreme Court tells SBI not to be selective and disclose full details of electoral bonds
  • With the US Department of Justice rpobing bribery charges against Adani group companies, Adani group shares and bonds are under pressure
  • Narayan Murthy gifts Infosys shares worth Rs 240cr to his 4-month-old grandson
  • Tata Sons to sell Rs 9362cr worth shares of TCS to pare debt
  • Stocks were positive on Monday - Sesex climbed 104 points to 72748 and Nifty 32 points to 22055
  • IOA dissolves the ad-hoc panel and gives full control of WFI to elected panel headed by Brij Bhushan aide Sanjay Singh
  • Controversy erupts after BJP leader Tathagata Roy prescribes the cicumcision test for those seeking citizenship under CAA. TMC calls it a 'vulgar jibe'
  • Rahul Gandhi concludes his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Mumbai, holds a mega rally at Shivaji Park and says the BJP does not have the courage to change the Constitution despite making a lot of noise in that regard
  • ED issues two fresh summons to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal in the liqour excise case just a day after he got bail in the earlier cases of ignoring the summons
  • A 14-year-old girl killed herself after she was strip-searched at school in Bagalkot in Karnataka
Election Commission orders removal of home secretaries of 6 states and the DGP of Bengal
oppn parties
Action Against Opposition Politicians: Only Fast-Track Cases And Convictions Will Justify The Government's Stand

By Sunil Garodia

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

The government is using its agencies like the IT department, the ED and the CBI to go after politicians and politically-exposed persons in a big way. The travails of former finance minister P Chidambaram at the hands of such agencies are well documented. The latest in the line of fire is DK Shivakumar, the chief troubleshooter of the Congress in Karnataka. He has been arrested by the ED under PMLA for alleged money laundering. As usual, Shivakumar has alleged that he is being targeted and the BJP government is indulging in political vendetta.

There can be no denying that the law must take its own course, always and at all times. If an inquiry is made by any of the agencies and if persons arrested during the course of the inquiry take the names of influential persons or even if documents recovered from them point to the involvement of such influential persons, the agencies are not at fault in questioning such persons. But the question that arises is why is the government targeting only opposition politicians? The whole country knows that politicians across the spectrum indulge in financial wrongdoing. Then how is it possible that the investigating agencies are not coming across the names of politicians from the BJP and other parties in the NDA?

Even if we agree with the fact that though the Congress is now protesting the action on its leaders, it had also misused all government agencies in the past, the problem is that it is very difficult to get convictions in such cases. Apart from Sukhram, Lalu Yadav and Jayalalitha, the names of other top politicians do not easily come to mind for conviction in cases of corruption and financial misdeeds. Hence, the government must tread very carefully. No point will be served in picking up politicians and lodging fancy cases against them unless such cases can be proved in court. But the way the agencies are going, one thinks that they will draw a blank. It will then become apparent that, as the opposition is alleging, the main intention was to shred reputations and stage the whole drama for television audiences. If the government and its agencies have the proof, they must move fast and start getting convictions to justify their action.