Congress party should adopt one yardstick to all its partymen By Nisser Dias nisserdias at gmail.com SMS to 9422437029
Indian Premier League more popularly known as the IPL have been surrounded engulfed in a controversy of financial irregularities like money laundering, betting, tax evasion besides nepotism adopted the IPL commissioner to dole out stakes to his family members and relatives.
For the last three years, this cricket tournament or rather the T20 format was a real entertainer until recently, when the skeletons started tumbling out from the cupboards of Lalit Modi. What triggered the controversy that led to the exposure which for two seasons was well concealed. Of course it requires an ‘Indian Politician’ to rake up controversy because our politicians and controversies are two sides of the same coin.
However the IPL balloon is not yet deflated, it is only pricked but very soon lot more controversy is going to flow. I do not think that a high profile personality like Shashi Tharoor, who was forced to resign as the Union Minister of State for External Affairs is going to take it lying down that he was clean bowled by IPL commissioner Lalit Modi. The government should use its administration and investigate into the various financial aspects of the Indian Premier League and its Franchises through the Directorate of Income Tax, Directorate of Anti Evasion, foreign funding, havala transactions and recover all the monies that is due to the country. Entertainment apart, if some of the stake holders had mal-intentions or has knowingly evaded taxes for the last three years they should be dealt with laws prevalent in the country.
The Congress top honchos along with its President Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh made a hard decision to urge international diplomat, former under secretary of United Nations and now a former junior minister of state for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor to submit his resignation for his alleged involvement in using his office to secure some percentage of sweat equity in the Kochi IPL team for his lady love Sunanda Pushkar. Tharoor might deny that he did nothing wrong, unethical or illegal, but put together a consortium together to buy a team for his state is convincing enough, what is not is his explanation that he has not used his position and office to obtain sweat equity of Rs. 70 crores for Sunanda Pushkar. It is difficult to digest that members of the Kochi consortium would just dish out free equity to a person, who till now was a non-entity in this country.
Be that as it may, the Congress party for the first time has treaded an unusual path, a decision that has far reaching consequences, provided the same yardstick is applied to each and every Congressman, who tries to adopt different ways and means to accumulate wealth through unfair and illegal means.
In the case of Tiruvanathanpurum MP Shashi Tharoor, Congress party with the exception of giving him an opportunity to explain himself to the Congress chief and the prime minister did not seem to have wasted time for formation of a committee to inquire into the matter and then initiate action or did not resort to the age old quote ‘the law will take its own course, they just demanded his resignation. An example of zero tolerance on corruption.
Similar yardstick should be applied to the Congress partymen in Goa. Take the example of MLA Pandurang Madkaikar, who as a Transport minister altered the tender of High Security Registration Plates after financial bids were opened and an increase of 48 percent was granted by the minister which was not endorsed by the tender committee member. This amounts to fraud on the vehicle owners in Goa and obviously it was done for personal gain. Now this is same legislator who is demanding that he be accommodated in the cabinet. The congress party should expel this MLA and criminal proceedings should be initiated against him.
Then we have Joaquim against whom the Comptroller and Auditor General of India have passed several strictures for criminal waste of public money. CAG has noted that GSUDA’s haste is awarding the contract to Hyquip in 2006 prevented more technically competent agencies from setting up solid waste management plant at Sonsoddo leading to waste of resources. It also says that chief secretary had advised scrapping of the project based on finance and vigilance department’s reports of irregularities. Here too the minister used his office and position to commit irregularities. Should the Congress High Command use the same yardstick that is applied to Shashi Throor?
Infact there is no dearth of scams, irregularities and cases of corruption in Goa involving congress ministers, there is the excise case allegedly involving the chief minister, illegal mining being carried out by ministers, senior Congress MLA and former minister Dayanand Narvekar was sworn in as minister, when a criminal case of cheating cricket fans was pending against him. The Congress party in the case of Shashi Throor has now adopted corrective measure, which is good, the ministers should be forced to step down the moment their name is dragged in a controversy and then let the course of law follow.
Congress party has taken a major step towards cleansing but should follow it with perseverance and other political parties also adopt this dictum, which would ultimately result in cleansing our murky and dubious politicians and political parties. (ENDS)
======================================================= First published in Gomantak Times, Goa - April 22, 2010
