Post Date: Post Date – 11:56 PM, Friday – October 28
Like how buyers on e-commerce portals add items to their carts before checkout, the BJP’s bizarre shopping philosophy includes adding states to its political cart through a cunning game of offering inducements and engineering defections. There is a clear pattern in its game plan across the country. The list of states that got into the Saffron Party through this shameful tactic is long: Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Manipur and Pondicherry . However, its secret plan to bribe ruling TRS lawmakers and destabilize the government in Telangana state has been undermined. In the process, BJP agents were caught on the spot while trying to reach their targets with money bags, and the BJP was completely exposed. The party’s central leadership should explain to the people that huge bribes – Rs 100 crore each of the four TRS MLAs – were attempted by BJP agents who were arrested by police at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Hyderabad. This is a blatant abuse of power and illicit use of money against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party colleagues, who routinely parrot their words in public life. Three BJP agents arrested by Cyberabad police allegedly threatened lawmakers with ED and CBI raids if they did not join the BJP. This is clearly in line with the BJP model of systematically arming the central investigative body to ruthlessly hunt down opposition leaders.
There is a clear and systematic pattern of using investigative agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to silence opposition voices and intimidate them into submission. Charges of disproportionate assets and violations of the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) are the most common charges against opposition politicians. But those who defected to the BJP gained full immunity and could sleep peacefully. The conviction rate for such cases was as low as 9 out of 1,569 over a decade, a fact that proved to be largely politically motivated. There was a time when the central government dissolved parliaments, especially in countries ruled by the opposition. Now, the trend is to manipulate the priorities of the ruling party and try to build the government of their choice. BJP’s ‘Operation Farmhouse’ appears to be the latest version of the party’s 2015 cash-for-ticket scam in which the Telugu Desam party offered Rs 5 lakh to buy votes to nominate lawmakers in elections for the Telangana legislature council. Interestingly, the BJP was an ally of the TDP at the time and the Coalition Party didn’t have enough votes. A Revanth Reddy, the lead defendant in the 2015 scandal, is now the chairman of the state legislature after defecting from the TDP.
