|  | Ram Jethmalani is a senior politician and eminent lawyer. |
| Modi: Exalted planet in our horoscope |
Those not committed to repatriating black money must be viewed as anti-national and compromising Modi.. |
 | t is about 10 o'clock in the morning of 16 May 2014, as I write this piece after my badminton game. Before starting I turned on the television to hear the election trends. 16 May 2014 will go down as a momentous Victory Day in India's history. The day the nation broke its shackles and attained deliverance from the corrupt, communal and colonial UPA government headed by the Italian branch of the Nehru-Gandhi family, which has bled our country by several thousands of crores during the last decade. This has been the mother of all victories, stunning the Congress into a deathly silence. With their miserable tally of 44 seats, they cannot even aspire to lead the Opposition. The UPA ensured the unity of their coalition through their adharma of corruption. By allocating spheres of corruption to each constituent, they ensured their continuity, confident also that religious division and vote banks that they engineered would blot out their plunder at the next election. They couldn't have been more misguided. The entire nation rejoices and salutes India's new Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who after a tireless and gruelling campaign of almost two years has received an unprecedented, historic mandate from the people of India to lead our country. I must also congratulate every columnist of The Sunday Guardian for giving a near accurate assessment of the election result. The Sunday Guardian, right from the start has consistently supported Narendra Modi for Prime Ministership. And it has happened just as we forecast and hoped, and Narendra Modi will be Prime Minister of the country, despite the hatred, calumny and lies that was disseminated about him in the most diabolical and calculated manner. But he fought them all and won. Additionally, I congratulate M.J. Akbar, Editorial Director of The Sunday Guardian for joining the BJP, and as a spokesman now, leading the path for other secular enlightened Muslims of India. As for me personally, I was both overjoyed and proud. Overjoyed, because the person whom I had been fighting for as most qualified and deserving for Prime Ministership of India, was miles ahead of his non-existent competitors. And proud, because my prediction made many months ago, based on my rudimentary knowledge of astrology corroborated by intuition, that Narendra Modi would be a glorious Prime Minister proved to be accurate. Let me, however, assure my readers that I have no plans to change my profession of law for one of a soothsayer. Nor is it my intention to seek some grateful reward from Narendra Modi. But today, I feel totally free to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, unrestrained by any adverse impact it might have on the electoral prospects of the BJP or any of its candidates, including Arun Jaitley. Everyone including Narendra Modi knows that I ceaselessly campaigned for him and the BJP, despite my expulsion from the party, chiefly manipulated by the notorious members of the 160 Club. My assistance during the election campaign was offered without distinction or discrimination, but about Arun Jaitley, I had written to Narendra Modi a long time ago, that his defeat was more or less certain, even without my campaigning for or against him. Apart from his humiliating electoral defeat, now that the 160 Club has also come a cropper, his attempts to flood important decision making platforms of Narendra Modi's government with his associates is not going to do him or the new government much good, except perhaps inviting his own quarantine in the party. I believe it was Narendra Modi alone, and none of the other distinguished Party leaders, who was responsible for including the issue of recovery of black money stashed away in foreign banks, in the BJP election manifesto. Narendra Modi is aware of my five years of legal battle in the Supreme Court to have a Special Investigation Team supervised by two ex-judges of the Supreme Court to carry out the task of recovering our stolen money. The Manmohan Singh government, under orders of Sonia Gandhi and her son managed to frustrate the Supreme Court judgement of July 2011 constituting an SIT for this purpose. This corrupt action was rejected as vexatious by the new three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Dattu on 26 March 2014. But what is most shameful is that even as election results were coming in on 16 May, Additional Solicitor General Siddharth Luthra moved the Supreme Court for relief in the shape of stay of the constitution of the SIT, which P. Chidambaram badly wants. The Hon'ble Judges summarily rejected the frivolous and dishonest request. What emerges crystal clear is the desperation that even as their party was being pulverised at the polls, the infamous looter trio of Sonia, Rahul and Chidambaram were trying their utmost to stall the Supreme Court directions. In this context, I would like to ask the mother and son one question: the nation should be informed of which foreign country Rahul was sent to by his mother, even as she was dining out the Prime Minister, and what the purpose of this unusual visit was. Incidentally, I have repeatedly stated in public and to the press that Sonia and her family are the chief beneficiaries of the plunder of US $1,500 billion, equivalent to Rs 90 lakh crore. I look forward to informing Narendra Modi, after he settles down as Prime Minister, about a few significant events that have taken place regarding disclosure about the black money holders, during March this year when I visited Germany. The German authorities required a request with signatures from the political opposition asking for disclosure of the names. On my return, I informed L.K. Advani and requested him to initiate action regarding obtaining the necessary signatures to a three-line letter (also provided to him by me), addressed to the German authorities requesting disclosure. Well, Advani did nothing; when reminded, he referred me to another BJP leader and lastly to my own son. It would clearly appear that any aspirant for office, whether from the 160 Club or Parliamentary Board who does not act in accordance with the commitment of repatriating black money must be viewed as anti-national and anti-party, and would greatly compromise Narendra Modi and the new government. They would be seen as part of the same criminal conspiracy which includes Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, some Cabinet ministers and associates, obstructing the repatriation of our stolen wealth. A Cabinet of impeccable integrity is the only way Narendra Modi must start with. Narendra Modi is completely aware of the test through fire that awaits him. He has so many priorities to attend to — reducing prices, creating jobs, revving up the economy, development, finding ways of uprooting the deep tendrils of corruption. But one of his first acts after becoming Prime Minister must be to specifically and categorically assure the minorities that he is not their enemy and they have nothing to fear from him. He must take them into confidence and explain to them how the hate campaign against him was systematically orchestrated and sustained by the enemies of India. This is important, for he must start peeling off the layers of lies that have been perpetrated around him in India and abroad, through hired mercenaries and intellectuals, including Nobel Laureates. These lies need to be demolished as systematically as they were constructed, and the best way to start is through such an assurance to all minorities that they will be protected, and treated as equal citizens of India in the same manner as the rest, and that their religious freedom will not be touched. Sab ka saath, sab ka vikaas. In this respect, Narendra Modi's words must be matched by actions, to prove his detractors and accusers as complete liars who misled vast sections of the people of India. The undesirable fringe elements who act rabidly against Hindu principles of tolerance and in the past have attacked churches have been responsible for giving the BJP a bad name. These fringe elements must be controlled and disowned, and a strong diktat must be issued against invoking religion in national policies, where all citizens are treated equally, or in making communal hate speeches. The Inter Faith Committee, which is part of the BJP Election Manifesto, must be established immediately, and a special vigil should be kept to ensure that no anti national mischief makers engineer any communal riots in the country just to malign Narendra Modi. Another important issue regarding which well intentioned but misinformed advice is being rendered by several of Narendra Modi's colleagues is regarding Article 370 of the Constitution of India. The ramifications of this issue are complex, and I look forward to discussing them with the Prime Minister, and fully informing him, particularly in the background of the negotiations that took place by the Kashmir Committee chaired by me during the Vajpayee regime, which I continued thereafter. As for me, I continue to remain in the departure lounge of God's airport, with no desire for office or political ambition, except to return at least a part of the debt which I owe to my country. |