Modi’s own record of ‘Raincoat Bathing’

• Narendra Modi is truly a street-smart politician. His ‘rain coat in a shower’ metaphor for Manmohan Singh is accurate description of Manmohan Singh’s ten-year long prime ministership. He allowed scams like 2G spectrum, coal block allocations and the Commonwealth Games loot to happen right under his nose without any direct charge of personal corruption sticking to him. His staunchest critics could not call him a corrupt prime minister. 
• Congressmen failed to point out how Modi himself has been a master at the art of being seen as clean, like a lotus, while remaining immersed neck deep in muck. 
• For 14 years Modi as Gujarat chief minister held the home portfolio. While his deputy minister of state for home, Amit Shah, was arrested, jailed and then externed for a spate of extra-judicial killings, the chain of evidence never travelled beyond Shah. As Shah and his loyalist police officers did time in jail, Modi reaped a rich political harvest by polarising society using these killings. His other ministerial colleague Mayaben Kodnani was sentenced to 28 years in prison for the Naroda Patiya massacre. 
• Babu Bajrangi, who killed women and children in Patiya and later, after being released on bail, ruled the streets of Ahmedabad for several years, kidnapping girls, blocking the release of films and terrorising minorities, all along openly flaunted his proximity with the chief minister. In 2012, he was convicted and sentenced to life based on eye-witness accounts and his own confession on a spy-camera, but his statement indicting Modi was dismissed as hearsay. 
• As chief minister, Modi presided over the killings of more than 1,000 men and women, and yet used every repudiation whether from within the party or without, every judicial stricture, every effort to inquire into his culpability, to further cement his stay in power.
• When it comes to the art of enjoying a shower without getting wet, Narendra Modi is many shades better than Manmohan Singh.
• CAG reports on the 2G spectrum, coal blocks and Krishna Godavari Basin singed Singh, politically and personally. But CAG reports on the scams of the Modi government in Gujarat faded without a whimper.
• In 2012, the Modi government earned strictures from the CAG for giving away a 10% participating stake in a KG Basin gas field measuring 4,57,000 acres it had won in an expensive bid to a mysterious overseas company named GeoGlobal Resources, incorporated in Barbados, with a capital of just $64, for free. As per the Modi government’s own estimates, announced in a press conference, the gas field was worth about $20 billion. Though state government-run GSPC, the owner of the gas field, had spent in excess of Rs 20,000 crore in drilling and exploration costs, Geo Global’s share of Rs 20,000 crore towards expenditure cost was also borne by GSPC. The issue failed to get the attention of the national media as Modi was on the ascendance and the corporate media owners could see which way the wind was blowing. Arvind Kejriwal’s hour-long press conference on the issue was blacked out. Till date there has been no inquiry into this shady deal nor any investigation into the real operators behind Geo Global, which was incorporated just six days before the joint venture with the GSPC. A new CAG report last year indicted Modi’s Gujarat government for wasting Rs 20,000 crore of public money in an exploration process which has yielded one-tenth of what he had promised.
• Just weeks after Modi’s inauguration as prime minister, the CAG released five different reports for the year ending March 2013, highlighting financial irregularities by the Modi-led Gujarat government amounting to more than Rs 25,000 crore, which included Rs 1,500 crore in undue benefits to companies like including Reliance Petroleum, Essar Power and the Adani Group.
• Modi as Gujarat chief minister gave away about 16,000 acres of land to Adani SEZ for rates between Rs 1 and Rs 32 per square metre. Other companies like Bharat Hotels, Larson & Toubro, Essar Steel and real estate developer K. Raheja also got large parcels of prime land for a fraction of market price. It had all the hallmark of crony capitalism: arbitrariness, private gains at the cost of the exchequer and proximity between beneficiaries and the chief minister. 
• When the opposition’s demand for a probe into land deals reached a crescendo, in 2011, chief minister Modi appointed an inquiry commission under a retired judge, a time-tested technique of deflection and obfuscation. The report of the commission was never made public and with neither media nor courts interested in holding him accountable, the Gujarat government had little incentive to release the report. Modi’s proverbial raincoat remained intact.
• For 13 years, chief minister Modi didn’t appoint a lokayukta in Gujarat. His government spent Rs 45 crore of taxpayer’s money in litigation blocking the appointment of retired justice R.A. Mehta, widely regarded as honest and competent, as lokayukta. For the last three years, Modi has not appointed a lokpal. Yet he projects himself from every pulpit as a warrior against black money.
• Between 2004 and 2015, the BJP has shown more than three-quarters of its funds as cash received from unnamed sources. The same funds catapulted Modi to prime ministership. Yet he has been drumming about the virtues of a cashless economy.
• As Modi’s march to Delhi was gaining pace, the UPA in a rearguard attack launched a probe into the business affairs of Gautam Adani, Modi’s principal backer. A probe by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) nailed the siphoning off of hundreds of crores abroad by the Adani Group by an intricate conspiracy involving over-valuation in imports for projects subject to a low or nil rate of customs duty. The report was finalised days before the results of Lok Sabha elections were due. Seeing the body of evidence against Adani, the UPA quickly moved to hand over the case to the CBI. For two years, the CBI, which reports to the prime minister’s office, is sitting tight on the file.
• In July last year another, the DRI probe revealed that 40 of the country’s biggest energy companies, including Adani and the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, were prima facie found involved in over-invoicing of imported coal. The scam was conservatively estimated at Rs 29,000 crore, with the common power consumers bearing the brunt of the inflated power bills, a direct effect of over-invoicing. Modi goes on publicly embracing both Adani and Anil Ambani. 
• The UPA was shamed into removing Ashok Chavan after the Adarsh Scam, Suresh Kalmadi after the CWG scam, A. Raja after the spectrum scam, Pawan Kumar Bansal after a bribery scam and Ashwani Kumar after the coal scam status report scandal. No such scruples bother Modi. After more than 40 suspected killings connected with the admission and recruitment scam called ‘Vyapam’ which happened on Shivraj Singh Chauhan’s watch, Modi has not said a word about the propriety of a tainted chief minister continuing in office. 
• Public outrage after Vasundhra Raje and her family were found to be mixed up with fugitive Lalit Modi failed to evoke a response from Modi. Addressing an election gathering in March 2014 in Chandigarh, then prime minister-designate Modi blasted the Congress for giving a ticket to the tainted Bansal. 
• On his watch, Modi’s alter ego Shah appointed tainted B.S. Yeddyurappa, who presided over many scams including the infamous Bellary scam and whose corrupt image had compelled the BJP to expel him as Karnataka state president in April 2016. 
• Modi as a prime ministerial candidate talked of bringing lakhs of crores of black money deposited in offshore bank accounts back to India. On his watch as prime minister, Vijay Mallya fled the country.
• The list of Modi’s wrongdoings runs long. His omissions and commissions in the Gujarat pogrom and the subsequent subversion of criminal justice system are shocking to the conscience of a reasonable person and a “kalank” for us as a nation. His silence over episodes like the Dadri lynching is as troubling as Singh’s silence as prime minister. Though perhaps he will never to have to face an inquiry into the alleged Sahara-Birla payoffs.
• The persecution of political opponents at the hands of police agencies, the harassment of civil rights activists and the systematic chipping away of institutional integrity and autonomy have surpassed the record of Congress regimes of the past. 
• If Singh was an accidental prime minister, notebandi has shown that Modi is an arbitrary prime minister. 
• Manmohan Singh has never had to face criminal prosecution for any of his actions or omissions. Modi too so far has staved off a criminal prosecution. The prime minister who ran the most corrupt central government in independent India’s history ironically remained for ten long years in public imagination as Mr Clean. It was only towards the end of his stint that his sheen wore off and he became a figure of ridicule and revulsion. 
• The present prime minister, who is running one of the most duplicitous, insensitive and arbitrary governments since independence, is similarly projecting himself as an honest man. It remains to be seen how history will judge Modi, but so far, he has managed to reap a rich political harvest from all the wrongdoings of his government and his party, without one charge sticking to him. 
• This may be attributed to the inadequacy of our legal system that has always failed to hold the powerful to account, or to the artful device of “raincoat in the bath” as Modi himself has put it. Though their styles contrast – one professorial, the other a relentless demagogue – both Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi have made a fine art of donning the raincoat.

Read the source article

On Modi's Watch, 20,000 Crores Vanished. The Big "Gas Scam"

The above list of misdeeds of Modi is neither exhaustive nor conclusive. 

1. In his book 'Karmayogi' Modi swears by caste order ‘Scavenging a spiritual experience for Valmiks’ which stirred controversy that compelled to withdraw all 5,000 copies published by his 'manasaputri' GSPC. 
2. In Aug 2017, ONGC has completed the Rs 7,738 crore acquisition of 80% stake in debt ridden GSPC's KG basin gas block for which GSPC had spent over Rs.20,000 crores, borrowed from 15 PSU banks, in the past 10 years and failed to discover any gas. A month before, Oil ministry raised flag over danger in government nudging ONGC to make sub optimal investments in GSPC that doesn't make business sense to them. ONGC doesn't have technical capability to complete the exploratory phase of drilling, as on date. It needs to invest lot more money to complete drilling and bring the gas field into production.
3. No sooner Modi became PM, Mayaben Kodnani was granted bail on health grounds. The Naroda Patiya convict Babu Bajrangi was granted bail 14 times, so far who is said to have lost his eyesight, mostly on the ground of his own and his wife’s health.

Needless to say that LK Advani and AB Vajpayee did greatest disservice to the nation by promoting non grata Modi as Gujarat CM and protecting him in 2002 riots that enabled him to become PM a decade later. Gujarat in particular and India in general stands destroyed.

Gujarat riots, Godhra train carnage 2002 & Modi

Godhra Train Carnage Feb 27, 2002
On the morning of Feb 27, 2002, Coach No. S/6 of Sabarmati Express, returning from Ayodhya with karsevaks and passengers inside, was set on fire by a Muslim mob near Godhra railway station in Gujarat. The passengers were returning after attending a ceremony at the disputed Babri Masjid.

The karsevaks chanted slogans throughout the entire voyage, all the while harassing Muslim passengers. One family was even made to get off the train for refusing to utter  “Jai Shri Ram!”. More abuse occurred at the stop in Godhra: a Muslim shopkeeper was also ordered to shout “Jai Shri Ram!” He refused, and was assaulted until the karsevaks.

The train made its scheduled stop at Godhra about four hours late, at 7:43 am. As the train started leaving the platform, someone pulled the emergency brake and the train stopped near the signal point and halted in the middle of a Muslim neighborhood. Anywhere from 500 to 2,000 of them, surrounded the coaches occupied by the karsevaks and attacked it with stones and torches. Coach S-6 was set on fire, killing 59 people including 27 women and 10 children were burnt to death, and 48 others were injured.

In 2011, a special court inside Sabarmati Jail convicted 31 people and 63 were acquitted. The death penalty was awarded to 11 convicts. Twenty others were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Aftermath: Riots to Pogrom to Genocide

• Godhra District Collector had spent the day explaining that the incident was not premeditated, Modi imposed his official version of the event that very evening, stating that it was a “pre-planned violent act of terrorism.”
• Modi called police officials at his home and gave them orders not to put down the Hindus who would inevitably react to the Godhra attack: the “Hindu backlash” was not only foreseeable, it was legitimate.
• That very evening, on the government's orders, the bodies were taken to Ahmedabad for a post-mortem and public ceremony.
• The arrival of the bodies at the Ahmedabad station was broadcast on television, causing considerable agitation among the Hindus, all the more so since the bodies were exhibited covered with a sheet. 
• The following day, the VHP organized the shutdown of the city (bandh) with the support of the BJP. This mobilization established the conditions for a Hindu offensive in Ahmedabad. 
• On the evening of  Feb 28, Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat, located 30 km from Ahmedabad, was the scene of Hindu-Muslim rioting for the first time in its history. Twenty-six towns in all were subject to curfew. Ahmedabad and Godhra saw the most serious clashes, with 350 and 100 victims respectively in early March, according to official statistics. After these two cities came Mehsana (50 dead ) and Sabarkantha (40 dead). 
• On Feb 28,  in Ahmedabad, in the Naroda Gaon and Naroda Pattiya areas, an armed hoard of several thousand people attacked Muslim houses and shops, killing 200. Six other neighborhoods in the city were subject to similar attacks on a lesser scale.
• The Naroda Patiya massacre took place on Feb 28, 2002 at Naroda, in Ahmedabad, India. 97 Muslims were killed by a mob of approximately 5,000 people, organised by the Bajrang Dal, and supported by the BJP. The massacre at Naroda lasted over 10 hours, during which the mob looted, stabbed, sexually assaulted, gang-raped and burnt people individually and in groups and was deemed "the largest single case of mass murder" during the 2002 Gujarat riots and accounted for the greatest number of deaths during a single event. The state government stated that the massacre was "a spontaneous reaction to the Godhra train carnage and the state government and ruling party had nothing to do with it". Modi, talking about the violence, said that the "riots resulting from the natural and justified anger of people".  Mayaben Kodnani, a BJP legislator is the "kingpin of the violence" was later appointed as a Minister for Women and Child Welfare in Narendra Modi's government. Cell phone records showed that she was in touch with the Chief Minister's Office, the Home Minister as well as top police officials during the massacre. She was sentenced to 28 years imprisonment in 2012.
• The Gulbarg Society massacre took place on Feb 28, 2002, when a Hindu crowd started stone pelting the Gulbarg Society, a Muslim neighbourhood in Chamanpura, Ahmedabad. Most of the houses were burnt, and at least 35 victims, including a former Congress Member of Parliament, Ehsan Jafri, were burnt alive, while 31 others went missing after the incident, later presumed dead, bringing the total deaths to 69. Modi and his administration did nothing to save Mr Jafri and 69 others at the Gulberg Society when rioters attacked them despite his repeated phone calls for help, even to the Chief Minister, but to no avail. 
• The next day, on 1 March, mainly rural districts were added to the list of hotspots: Panchmahals, Mehsana, Kheda, Junagadh, Banaskantha, Patan, Anand and Narmada. 
• On Mar 2, Bharuch and Rajkot, which had yet to be affected by communal violence, were hit in turn.
• On the Mar 4, riots broke out in Surat.
• The clashes in Gujarat could not have spread so quickly and taken on such proportions unless they had been orchestrated by well-organized actors and the attackers' plan had been prepared prior to the events in Godhra.
• The evening of Feb 27, two of Modi's ministers, Ashok Bhatt and Prabhatsingh Chauhan, along with 50 other Sangh Parivar officials, organized a rally in Lunawad, a village in Panchamahals, of which Gohad is district headquarters, to plan “reprisals.”
• It was a far cry from the spontaneous rioting, Modi later described to excuse the Hindus.
• The lists that the ringleaders had in hand attest the premeditated nature of the assault. These indicate Muslim homes and shops, some of which bore Hindi names, thereby proving that investigation had actually been undertaken beforehand ascertaining the owner's identity. The computer print-out lists had partly been drawn up on the basis of voter registration lists.
• Several senior civil servants admitted to investigators that on Feb 28, the Gujarat Interior Minister, Gordhan Zadafira, and Health Minister Ashok Bhatt directed the advance of the assailants from the “City police control room” of Ahmedabad.  At the same time, the Urban Development Minister, I.K. Jadeja, a close associate of Modi, had set up his headquarter in the Gujarat “State police control room” in Gandhinagar. All gave the police forces orders not to intervene. 
• The violence involved looting Muslim shops then blowing them up with gas cylinders. These operations show careful planning and indicate official support. It would be impossible to transport that many men (and gas cylinders) with that many trucks without the benefit of state logistic support. Above all, the protected nature of the clashes over days, weeks, and even months can only be explained by active government cooperation. 
• The attackers set fire to a few automobiles in the vicinity of police stations to make sure their schemes could be carried out with no fear of punishment.
• The administration was paralyzed. Since their rise to power in Gujarat, Hindu nationalists had penetrated deep into the state apparatus including police. Hence the standard response, they gave to the Muslims who called them to their rescue “We have no order to save you".
• An indication that the Modi wanted to see the clashes last, the army, which was already in the vicinity on Mar 1, -- 12 columns with 600 men were stationed at the time in Ahmedabad and other hotspots in Gujarat was kept aside for few “flag marches.”  It was  on stand-by under the pretense that no “official” was available to accompany the troop. 
• The authorities never took the necessary steps to help the refugees: most of the aid came from Muslim NGOs.
• Over 1,200 villages were affected, in the districts of Panchmahals, Mehsana, Sabarkantaha, Bharuch, Bhavnagar and Vadodara. The army had to be called in on Mar 5. Over 2,500 Muslims from 22 different villages were moved to refugee camps. These villages no longer had a single Muslim.
• There exists correlation between the election calendar and the cycle of riots. Both riots and deaths do tend to cluster in the months before elections, and then drop off sharply in the months after an election is held.
• Modi used Godhra as an opportunity to unleash violence and hoped to capitalize on during early elections. He recommended to the governor S.S. Bhandari, another RSS activist, dissolve the assembly on Jul 19, 2003. He resigned as Chief Minister, while remaining at the helmas care taker CM. These tactics were all the more shocking since the violence had far from subsided everywhere.  On Jul 20, the day after the assembly was dissolved, two people were killed and 14 wounded by stone-throwing and police gunfire, in Ahmedabad. 
• Vajpayee was blamed for his failure as PM to get rid of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who reportedly shouted back at a Muslim leader on the phone for seeking help after a mob had gathered outside his house. Some hours later, the Muslim leader was lynched. Modi seemed to be the villain who brought a lot of shame to the central government. Vajpayee instructed  ‘Modi has to go’ but Modi's mentor LK Advani saved him.
• In such conditions, JM Lyngdoh, Chief Election Commissioner, who visited 12 of the state's districts between July 31 and 4 Aug 4, was reluctant to organise polls, especially since many voters, a vast majority of them Muslims, were still living far from their homes in refugee camps. So Modi and the BJP strove to demonstrate that calm had been restored, leading them first to hurriedly closed refugee camps or lower the number of occupants. 
• National BJP leaders Dy PM L.K. Advani joined in the call for early elections. Given the objections of the EC, which preferred President's Rule be declared because the election could not be organized and the BJP brought the case before the Supreme Court which refused to express an opinion, referring to the EC decisions. In early November, the Commission set a date for the elections to begin on Dec 12,2013. 

Any one committing or abetting crime is a criminal. 

Punishing depends upon the evidence and process of law conclusively. 

My View:

The role played by Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi in facilitating, inciting, assisting the rioters, disabling police from their duties and in fact police were assisting rioting mobs, available army were asked only to do flag marches but not used  to control the situation during first few days of riots amply concludes that he is deeply involved in the genocide of 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus and more than 2000 casualties in Gujarat in 2002. How he managed to survive, later got absolved by Nanavati-Mehta Commission and win elections and went on to become Prime Minister 12 years later, only indicates his manipulative capabilities of a shrewd politician.