Showing posts with label Election results. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Election results. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Nehru Gene , Congress & Faulty Policies - Let's move on or else suffer more !!

March – April meant a lot of travel and meetings for myself , but the most interesting part were a few conversations that I will never forget !!

Whenever I am travelling to places within India and abroad , I make sure that I interact with people and ask them how much they know of our great country and what they feel about it . I am always proud to be born in this great country . May be , this drives me to find some answers to questions that need not be stated here !!

One conversation I had was with a senior columnist in Kashmir during my visit last month . While we were talking , the issue of partition came up ( this topic is close to my heart as my mother was born and brought up in Lahore , now in Pakistan ) .

This columnist had an interesting point : He mentioned that due to the insatiable lust for power in Nehru , India got divided . His belief was that, Jinnah was at his fag-end due to cancer , if only Nehru would have waited for one more year ( It is not good to have a wish that one dies of cancer but...) , we could have saved ourselves from partition . The columnist went on to add , how could India leave Khyber pass and partition India and give away the pass to Pakistan ;The only way to reach Europe ?? I do not know geography so much , but he had an interesting point !

Other discussion I had was with my cab driver on the way from Washington DCA airport to the hotel . I figured out that the driver seemed to be from our part of the world , So I asked him where he belonged to ? I was right , he was from Pakistan but settled in the US for over 28 years !! While we kept talking about our countries before Partition and the sad story of strained relations now . He shared some very interesting information of why India got partitioned ?

According to this cabbie . India had the maximum number of Muslims , and Nehru & Congress party knew very well that, if India remained united , the vote of Muslims would swing to Indian Muslim League and not come to congress , so Nehru used his proximity with Edwina Mountbatten and planted the thought of partition in Jinnah. Well, I never thought of this angle !! Further this cabbie informed that, if you see the history of Jinnah a few years before freedom , he was never in favor of a partition . It was a congress and Nehru’s game plan and they never wanted to share a few states with IML ( Indian Muslim League ), which would have garnered power in some states, as some states had Muslims in majority , and Hindu’s & Muslims lived in complete harmony .

I completely empathise with this cabbie . I can only state that my mother’s family stayed in Lahore and Karachi , and I have seen my grandfather writing letters in Urdu , it never was an issue . It was planted by congress and today both nations are paying a price for the naked & insatiable lust of Nehru & his congress for grabbing power in 1947 .

The amount of money both these nations have spent on armed forces and conflict would have made this region developed in just 25 -30 years after freedom . But what we got was freedom for Nehru family to rule this nation and not for India !! Now we can well understand why Gandhi ji was in Calcutta during Independence and not with Nehru !! Gandhi ji died at the right time. Had he been alive , he would have revolted against Nehru .

AICC should have been dissolved after independence : Gandhi ji was never in favor of AICC continuing after freedom , In fact , he made a suggestion that since the objective of the congress were achieved by getting freedom from the British , it must be dissolved . But we know that Nehru had a different plan and India continues to ruin under this party !!

One of the interesting viewpoints I can share is from LKY ( Lew Kuan Yew , Father of Modern Singapore ). He has openly criticized Nehru for aping the central planning of the Soviet Union . LKY went on add that Nehru was a good writer & poet but not a great leader for India . Nehru kept promoting the non-aligned movement for the developing world but strongly sided with the soviet Union ( that is , he said one thing and did just the opposite , this is what I call the ‘Nehru Gene’ , which by the way is a legacy of the Gandhi family and its congress ) , and in the end, Nehru caused more harm to India than any other leader ! Nehru had a great opportunity to change the course of the nation immediately after freedom as he had a free hand and people believed in him , but he missed the opportunity .

Indians know that Nehru was the one who took Kashmir to United Nations , he was the one who promoted industries and not SME’s & agriculture ! Nehru guided India towards a disaster with his short-sighted policies ‘Nehru gene’ still rules the Gandhi family and the congress, and it is time to let this party be out of power for at least two terms so that the country can be brought back on track

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

www.rajendragupta.wordpress.com

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Vulgar Salaries - Corporate India

Mr.Salmaan Khurshid
Union Minister for Corporate Affairs
Government of India
New Delhi

Dear Mr. Khurshid ,

I wish to put my view point on your statement made a few days ago on the Vulgar salaries. Since i was travelling so i could not send this earlier .

Recently there has been a lot of hue and cry created due to a statement made by you. Earlier a similar statement had come from Dr. Manmohan Singh. According to you, corporate honchos are drawing salaries that are 12500 times the per capita income of this nation

I am not at all happy with your statement . I recall my letter to Dr. Manmohan Singh in January 09, wherein i requested that the salaries of the public representatives must be made more lucrative to attract the best brains

Also, that I must walk you through some of the realities in the corporate world and the politician’s working so as to make a correct assessment and a logical conclusion.

Firstly , Mr.Salmaan Khurshid , you must question why the governments in the last 62 years have not been able to increase the per capita income in this nation ? If the per capita income would have grown sufficiently , then you would not have a devastating comparison of 1:12500 ? Prime Facie your governments are at a fault for the backward development of this nation on the basis of caste and regions , and focussing on the real issues

Also , that the corporate world have created wealth for the nation and politicians have taken the nation’s wealth to Swiss Banks ? Did you take this into account before your statement ?

Corporates have created millions of Jobs. Be it TATA’s , Birla’s , RPG or Reliance or any big or even the smallest corporate house . These people have a lot of responsibility to deliver & risks to take at the cost of their family and social life. Still of whatever they earn , you ( i mean the government ) takes 50 % as taxes , both direct and indirect taxes. Needless to mention, about the income that government makes from the corporate taxes that the companies pay due to the hard work and intelligence of these executives !! . If they earn Rs.50 crore a year after delivering billion of dollars for the nation’s economy & creating lacs of jobs, what is wrong in that ? You forget that Ambani’s themselves contribute about 10 % to the total tax kitty of this nation ? What an irony that you would pat your back with his 60 % voluntary salary cut . Anyways, he has his net worth in billions of dollars as stakes in RIL etc........ You must think of nationalising his stake in RIL

Did you also take into account the CSR ( Corporate social responsibility ) that the corporates undertake ?

Mr. Minister , did you ever consider that government run companies are ‘Toxic assets’ till your people run it, and they become ‘Exotic assets ’ once they are privatised !! Because when you pay peanuts , you get monkeys !!

Today , you go all over the world and scream of the India’s IT & Telecom numbers . This is done due to the hard work of Private CEO’s and not political monkeys !! You had the monopoly of BSNL & MTNL . What great job have you done despite the monopoly ? You privatised VSNL to TATA’s and it is doing good. You could not make good business out of it. In the 60’s when the private sector wanted to grow you licensed it and even nationalised it, claiming it was the right thing to do . After messing it for 40 years , now you are privatising and you believe that it is the best thing to do ? Are you not fooling the public ? You all are privatising as you don’t have the money to run the government !! That’s the truth .

Let me show you what you politicians do. Here are some examples

Centaur hotel at Mumbai airport was sold to Batra Hospitality for Rs. 85 crore . Without doing anything , Batra Hospitality sold it to Sahara for Rs. 143 Crore within a few weeks . And its occupancy is 100 % at any given point in time. What was your minister doing when Centaur failed to deliver ? What was the basis of his selling to Batra and not to Sahara directly ? Reason out why the hotel was sold at such a low cost to Batra Hospitality ? Government lost due to a minister that was not at all as competent as Batra Hospitality executives or .......................

Your Current Civil Aviation minister had lost the election in 2004, despite that he was made the minister . Under his leadership, Indian airlines would stand to lose Rs.5000 Crores this year . Is this how a corporate CEO performs when he takes the so called ‘Vulgar’ salaries? Give me one example in India where the CEO gives such a humongous loss and still continues !!

India is facing an unprecedented shortage of agriculture products ( grains etc due to erratic and insufficient rains ). Please check the rule book of the FCI (Food corporation of India ) godowns ( warehouses ). 2.5 % of wastage is permissible ( please correct me , i may be wrong on this info). This means for one lac ton of grains , 2500 tons of wastage is permissible !! How efficient is this ? Please privatise and see the magic !!

Mr. Telecom Minister is delaying the allocation of 3G spectrum. It is estimated that the spectrum allocation would earn the government anywhere between Rs.20000 to 35000 crore . Ministry has already delayed the spectrum allocation by more than a year . If he takes it to two years . Just the interest loss to the government on the spectrum fees would be as high as Rs. 7000 crore ? Wish you had a corporate CEO taking Rs.100 Crore a year salary and saving you Rs.6900 crore ( Assuming a loss of Rs.7000 crore on the interest income ) ? Does it sound ‘Vulgar’ ? And , interestingly, even after giving such a massive loss to the government exchequer . Your minister has the ‘Cheeks’ to make tall statements and he is not accountable . Had it been a corporate CEO issue , he would have been removed ‘unceremoniously’ from the board , and his career would have ended forever !!

Sometime in 2007,i had a chance to meet once of the relatives of your Telecom Minister Mr.A.Raja . His relative asked for 10 lacs to make ten calls on behalf of the Minister to corporates irrespective of the outcome . What a business model ? Dare to act ? Please initiate a CBI inquiry against Mr.Raja’s assets and the truth should be out .

Earlier , you had the license Raj that killed the corporate world . Now you are trying to license the salaries ? Do you want corporate CEO’s to meet the Minister for taking approval of the salary hikes ? So that you all can start making money on corporate salaries ? Have some shame Mr. Minister !

When parties go to collect donations for the elections , why do you not talk about this ‘Vulgar salaries’. Shamelessly, you collect money from corporates and then have the ‘balls’ to talk nonsense !!

Do you also have a figure of the cost of buying an M.P’s vote in the ‘floor test’ of the house ? For an ordinary MLA it is about 50 core !! That’s what we have always heard or read in the news . Does this not sound ‘Vulgar’

When your allies ask for ‘Plum postings’ in Ministries what does it mean ?

Mr. Khurshid, let us check what the Minister’s take as salaries and perks:

• Average minister get’s an M.P.’s basic salary of Rs.1.92 Lac per annum
• Rs.24000 additional
• A Bungalow in Delhi – Costs upwards of Rs. 200 crore at today’s prices and would mean a rental of Rs.60 lacs a year
• A staff strength of 16 for cabinet ministers and 13 for Deputy ministers
• Plus Security Guards
• A fleet of three cars with Petrol ???
• Unlimited domestic and international calls
• Now ‘Cattle Class’ travel and also private jet’s and government choppers used for luxury travel – cost cannot be calculated off hand .
• A MPLAD fund of Rs. 2 crore for expenditure
• Above all . No accountability !!

Do you think that an M.P. can represent 1.9 million people and win an election at these salaries and perks ? unofficially , the average cost of becoming an M.P. is Rs. 20 crore . That is the reason that most of the current lot of M.P’s are either owners of media houses , educations trusts , shady businessmen or sons and daughters of politicians .Pay decent salaries to your M.P’s, rather than being jealous of the corporate salaries !! Corruption in politics is only, because all of us expect a lot from our politicians and they are grossly underpaid . My view point is , that each M.P. represents an average of 1.9 million citizen, and they must be paid a between Rs.5-10 crore per year as salary to get the best out of them.

With 545 M.P’s in Lok Sabha and 245 in Rajya Sabha working for this nation . We still had a staggering fiscal deficit of Rs. 2,10,000 crore in January 2009 and counting . It works out to a loss of Rs.575 cores a day , 23.95 crore per hour or Approx. Rs.40 Lac a minute. Does it not make sense to pay each M.P. a salary of Rs.5 -10 crore a year and get the best brains ? You all are penny wise and pound foolish policy makers !!

What a colossal opportunity loss for India due to ‘mediocre brains’ and ‘low salaries’. Please re-consider the salaries, and we ( at least i would be for sure ! ) would be glad to join !!

I know that recently , Mukesh Bhai decided to take a 60 % cut in his salary so Salmaan Khurshid can pat his back . Don’t take common man for a ride Salmaan Sahab . Your statements are a proof of your getting distracted by handling the ministry of corporate affairs . You should be made either the rural development minister , NAREGA , JNRHM or the minister of telecom . Your mouth would be shut for the next few years !! After all they are ‘Plum postings’ !!

Don’t forget that until 1980’s India was only known for poverty , population & corruption. It is the private sector that has taken India where it is today. Don’t try and meddle with the sector

Though , i must make a point that a very few corporate CEO’s in India take a salary of about Rs.10 crore or more . They are a handful in a land of 1.2 billion . Pray to God that we have more such CEO’s so that India can grow more . I want a wealthy India . You might say it is ‘Vulgar ‘ to think so !

Regret to write to you this email, but can’t stop expressing the thoughts

With no wishes or regards

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

President
Countryfirst
office@rajendragupta.org
President@countryfirst.org
+91-922 33 44 542


C.C.
Mrs.Sonial Gandhi
Dr.Manmohan Singh
Rahul Gandhi
Sharad Pawar
Dr.Murli Manohar Joshi, Chairman , Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance
Sitaram Yechury
A.P.J.Abdul Kalam
Shiv Khera
Ratan Tata
Mukesh Ambani
Anil Ambani
Media

Friday, May 1, 2009

Urban voters can't make a difference in the current political system - Rajendra Pratap Gupta

Why should the public vote ?

A lot many people expected that the voting percentage would be higher this time due to the people dissatisfied with the current system, and that the campaigns like Jagoree would enthuse voters. Just two days before the voting , I was talking to my friend Dr. Anand Trivedi , State President of Shiv Khera’s party, and I told him that , I did not expect voting percentage to be higher . Reasons are clear , those who are concerned are in very small number  ( urban voters) don’t vote due to lack of trust in the current creed of politicians and those who vote don’t count or don’t think of the consequences of voting . For them voting is a trading business . Money for vote . Simple to decide .

 

Over the years , politicians have done little to enthuse voters or convince them that they stand for the good of the nation. On the contrary, people like Sanjay Dutt standing in the elections , crores of wealth disclosed by the contestants , statements made by Varun , Mulayam etc , too many political parties in the fray have convinced the intelligentsia that voting will not change the system

 

From my personal experience , I must state that these independents and small time parties will not make any big change in the election , they can just raise some awareness. I am sure that, most of these people will lose their security deposit. Also , that most of these people are ambitious and fight for who takes the lead . This is spoiling the equations that could have created an impact . In essence , these small parties are not united . Everyone thinks that he or she can change the system

 

Last time when Shiv Khera supported a few candidates through his party , I had warned him of losing security deposit and also gave him the logic for this conclusion.

 

People who vote  diligently are amongst the 600 million people who earn less than a dollar a day. They are a creation of 50 years of congress misrule . These people don’t care about development or five year plans , they are concerned about today’s dinner and fun ( they rarely would imagine indulgence !! ). So politicians can get them for election rallies in hot summer afternoon by promising them chicken curry , buy their vote by cash for vote offer. Why are we so stupid to think, if these politicians can trade in crores for joining the government , why will they not spend 20 crores buying votes ? After all , you can recover in multiples by voting in a ‘trust vote’ . Which is now almost a common occurrence .

 

Politics is such a game that people cannot change it without media support and an proactive , effective and an independent judicial system. Both are handsomely paid by politicians . If the judicial system just set up special courts to try cases related to politicians & political corruption, the system could be cleaned in the next ten years.

 

I think that majority of the people have started believing that the system will never change . This is the death of democracy by suffocation from politicians .

 

What will Rahul Gandhi do to this nation  ? His father used to say that out of Rs.1 meant for poor only 15 paisa reaches the poor . Recently in Gangtok, he said out of Rs.100 meant for poor only 15 paisa reaches the poor. All this , when his great grand father , grand mother and father ruled India repeatedly and divided it ? We must not forget that Gandhi’s were Kashmiri Pandits and they could not save Kashmiri pandits from fleeing from Kashmir. Infact , the biggest mistake that Nehru did was to take Kashmir to United Nations and internationalize it ! Same for Amethi , it has been the ‘parking lot’ for Gandhi family to cry , sing and dance before the elections and win . Whereas, after representing it for decades , the latest data of Amethi shows that 35 % of the population is still below the poverty line. If the Gandhi’s cannot save their Kashmiri brethren and constituencies they represent , What good they will do to India  ? Now you can understand why people don’t trust politicians and why they will not waste their time to vote .

 

Urban voters don’t waste your time ……….Do something that counts.

 

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

President

Country First

Email : president@countryfirst.org

            Rajendra.india@gmail.com