Sonia to be named in 2G scam
Udupi: An intrepid fighter against corruption whose activism resulted in severe strictures against the federal government by the Supreme Court, and the prime minister of India admitting that he made mistakes and announcing a parliamentary probe into the reported loot of thousands of millions of rupees via the 2G scam, now says that he will begin the process to prosecute India’s most powerful woman and the world’s ninth most powerful person (according to Forbes magazine).
Looking at the way things are going under the directions of the Supreme Court, apart from the daylight loot, there is also a security angle with visible threat to India’s unity and sovereignty, if one goes by the recent report submitted by India’s premier investigation agency, the CBI.
In its report filed in the court of CBI special judge Pradeep Chaddha, the Central Bureau of Investigation stated that it has begun probing if the spectrum scam compromised the country’s national security, according to media reports.
Now Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, who has already sought the prosecution of the chief minister of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Muthuvel Karunanidhi, in the scam, now says: “The light at the end (of) the camouflage tunnel of Sonia’s loot is now visible to me.”
Karunanidhi also heads the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party, an important constituent of the United Progessive Alliance (UPA), of which Sonia Gandhi is the chairperson.
Swamy says he plans to file an application to seek sanction to prosecute Sonia Gandhi in the case in April.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has estimated that the 2G scam caused a presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer.
CBI said it has begun probing the threat to country’s internal security as per the concerns raised by Swamy, who had come to the court seeking a probe into the scam.
He had also sought the court’s direction to appoint him as a public prosecutor to help the agency in probing the case and trying the accused.
Swamy’s views on Sonia Gandhi, who he says constitutes “danger for the nation”. He has also accused Sonia Gandhi of pocketing Rs 30,000 crore in the 2G scam, and claimed that the reason she does not want to file a defamation case against him is that she fears being taken to the witness box.
He also describes Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as an honest man, “but he is not able to take independent decisions because he has a high command (Sonia Gandhi) over him”.
Swamy’s decision came in a tweet he posted yesterday.
Earlier, taking serious view of the Centre ignoring the Union home ministry’s note raising the security issues relating to the investment by Shahid Balwa’s Dubai-based company Etisalat in India, the Supreme Court on on March 4 directed the CBI to look into the matter and submit an interim report by March 15.
The bench also asked CBI to examine the issue of alleged coercing of Chennai-based telecom company S-Tel, whose licence was cancelled when it had taken the 2G case to the Delhi High Court, which termed allotment of spectrums by former telecom minister A. Raja as “arbitrary”.
Born on September 15, 1939, Swamy is today a nationally known leader, who is widely respected for his conviction and commitment to furthering democracy and market economy. The Jaanata Party was founded Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan in 1977 and led to the defeat of Sonia Gandhi’s mother-in-law and then prime minister Indira Gandhi after she lifted a bitterly opposed Emergency laws.
The Janata Party susequently split — and keeps on further splitting — into various news parties, notably the Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar, but Swamy still heads the originial Janata Party.