The Politics of Love and Loyalty

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Contemporary politics is an idiosyncratic trade. People stay mum for allegations which would attract a tight slap in normal situations and even an attempted kill in flared up moods. An example of one such (chronic) behaviour is that of the Gandhi family, not of the Barrister from Gujarat, but of the heirs of the person to whom he lent his surname. Feroze Gandhi. There were some retorts and repartees during the times of Feroze's wife Indira and his son Rajiv. But right after Rajiv's wife Sonia Gandhi took over the family organisation i.e the Congress Party, a lot of allegations were levelled, some even make the listener think as if hurling vitriol at will were the order of the day. But not even a murmur heard against such allegations, leave alone law suits being filed.


Dr.Subramanian Swamy, who was referred to as an economist gone astray when he left his potentially Nobel winning research along with Paul Samuelson to fight the clamping of emergency in India, has been levelling allegations upon allegations against Ms.Gandhi, her immediate family and her coterie, that too out in the public, but surprisingly we have not seen even an eyebrow being raised from the Gandhis. It is so difficult to believe that they practise a saintly restraint, given the level and seriousness of the allegations.

Given this trend of the first family of the Congress party and its coterie, now an old and live shell has been added to the string and cluster of allegations upon them by the retired CBI officer K. Ragothaman, who worked with the SIT (Special Investigation Team) as Chief Investigating Officer that investigated , amidst myriad troubles from our own Government and other agencies, the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

Ragothaman alleges that the then IB Chief M.K.Narayanan had attempted to scuttle investigating an important video tape that is still believed to have had recording of the events during the critical hours on the D-day. The fate of the video tape recorded by one Babu and handed over to the CBCID and eventually to IB is still pending conclusion.

M.K.Narayanan is said to have advised the then Prime Minister Chandra Shekar that the tape was under scrutiny of the IB and will be handed over to the SIT, but had never handed it over and had allegedly destroyed the important piece of evidence. Narayanan has been an important man in the inner circle of Sonia Gandhi for a long time and that is one thorn in the minds of most conscientious people. Why a widow is favouring a person who is still under a cloud suspicion in the events leading to her being a widow? Narayanan's reaction to this serious allegation is a go easy one. That makes one sit up and think about the hell that is going on.

There are some questions in the minds of the people of this nation.

• Why should Sonia pardon the co-conspirators of her husband's assassination?
• What had transpired between Priyanka and Nalini in the jail?
• Why  M.K.Narayanan, one of the dubious personalities with regards to Rajiv assasination, has been given very important responsibilities in the national administration?
• Why a person, incapable of securing a simple video tape, taking the stance that Narayanan was not involved in any conspiracy, has been given the responsibility of advising on national security?
• Why Sonia Gandhi and others not suing Dr.Swamy for levelling malicious allegations, if the allegations are false?
• The nation owes an explanation from the Gandhi family about the allegations of smuggling and trafficking by Dr. Swamy, given to understand their ever forgiving attitude towards people incriminating them.
• The refusal to submit for audit of the spend of the Government funds by the Rajiv Gandhi foundation is highly suspicious. The insinuations of the Trust's secretary smacks high handedness.

Given that these questions have been asked for a long while with no sign of answer from the Gandhi family and their coterie, we're to conclude that Dr.Swamy is right in his allegations.
Dr. Swamy says another startling thing. That the love between Rajiv Gandhi and Antonia Maino was a premeditated one masterminded by the KGB and executed by ISI. Then Antonia was given the name Sonia and became a Gandhi due to wedlock.

To add to substance to the alleged web of KGB conspiracies is Admiral Gorshkov. Not the late General officer of Russian Navy, but the warship in his name. The question rather left unasked by many, about the fate of Admiral Gorshkov, that we ordered and still waiting for delivery. In 2004 India and Russia signed a $947 million deal to refurbish and convert the Soviet warship Admiral Gorshkov into a full carrier, to be re-named as INS Vikramaditya. The announced delivery date for INS Vikramaditya was August 2008.

Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov confirmed a  further 1-year delivery delay, when he arrived in New Delhi this October for high level talks. The ship was scheduled for commissioning into Indian Navy by December 4, 2012 but Russian media reports have suggested that it would now be delivered only in October 2013. The carrier was originally scheduled to join the navy in 2008.

A trivia of much importance to the defence analysts is: China is working hard to refurbish the 58,000t ex-Russian carrier Varyag, and has begun tests as of 2012. In September 2012, reports surfaced that the ship would be named “Liaoning,” in honor of the province where it was retrofitted. It began sailing before the end of the year.

Under the contract, India can impose a penalty of up to 5%, and Ministry of Defence officials have been quoted using a figure of Rs 600 crore (currently about $113.8 million).  But our officials have not yet decided on this and would do so most probably on the negative. It is everyone's secret who controls the Government machinery and we need to do some mental calculations based on various reports quoting the intelligentsia about who controls the controller of the Government.

The Mitrokin papers have been source of information for concluding on many questions of which we had no clue earlier.

These intelligence papers should be treated with contempt said K.Natwar Singh, the self anointed Foreign Policy expert of the Congress Party, once upon a time. Later Natwar slipped in the slick of Iraqi oil scam report by Volcker. In the words of Jack Straw the former British Home Secretary, "As there were no original KGB documents or copies of original documents, the material itself was of no direct evidential value, but it was of huge value for intelligence and investigative purposes." So, these are not something to be brushed aside with the 'left hand' as suggested by the erstwhile expert.

Well, the alleged KGB plan, to get their mole into the PM's closed circuit and the gradual but ruthless elimination of other contenders to the top job in the Gandhi family makes us to conclude that the puppet in the hands of KGB is running the show as directed, can now be deemed making sense to the intelligentsia, if not proved with incontrovertible evidence which we will never have. Now we have an allegation that the alleged destroyer of key evidence in the Rajiv assassination case being given much importance in the family run Government. (Refer to youtube videos of Dr.Subramanian Swamy on Sonia Gandhi.)

So, it can be accepted with some sense of fairness, arguably so under Section 4 of The Indian Evidence Act, 1872 which states that  "Whenever it is directed by this Act that the Court shall presume a fact, it shall regard such fact as proved, unless and until it is disproved" So, unless it is disproved that the allegations against the Gandhis are false, they stand despite being in the class of hearsay.

Based on the afore gathered information, who rules India? Dr.Manmohan Singh is an ingenuous answer. Then who? бог знает лучше (God knows best). Hopeful of a better mandate in the national interest in 2014.