Narendra Modi’s latest expansion of his Cabinet brings the total strength of Ministers to 66. The compulsions of accommodating leaders from a variety of states, castes and allied parties triumphed over the initial claims of ‘minimum government, maximum governance’.
What is most striking about the Cabinet expansion is the unashamed accommodation of leaders tainted by serious crimes and corruption: the very question on which Modi Sarkar had promised to mark a break from the UPA Cabinet. Seven of the new Ministers have serious criminal charges against them, including those of murder, rioting and rape. In all, a study has shown that 20 (31%) out of entire strength of 64 Ministers, have serious criminal charges against them. Modi apologists have tried to label the charges as ‘flimsy’ – but such defences do not hold much water.
Moreover, one of the new Ministers, JP Nadda, is implicated in getting whistleblower Sanjeev Chaturvedi removed from his post as AIIMS CVO. Allegedly, Nadda pressurised the then Health Minister Harsh Vardhan to remove Chaturvedi, who was investigating an officer close to Nadda for corrupt deals to the tune of crores of rupees.
Then, there is the case of the Suresh Prabhu, who shifted allegiance from Shiv Sena to BJP on the eve of his induction into the Cabinet. Prabhu, former Environment Minister in the Vajpayee Government, ironically has a flat in the Adarsh Society in Maharashtra, notorious for violating a host of environmental laws and regulations. Prabhu’s flat is also larger that the area to which he is legally entitled. The Adarsh Society scam was a serious black mark on the Congress-NCP Government in the State, but Opposition political leaders including Prabhu are alleged to be beneficiaries of the scam. With Prabhu finding a berth in Modi’s Cabinet, the issue of corruption has come full circle – showing the essential continuity between the UPA and NDA regimes on this issue.
The inclusion of Jayant Sinha (son of BJP leader Yashwant Sinha) in the Cabinet is also noteworthy – pointing to the close overlapping of corporate and government interests, and the consequent conflict of these interests with those of the country and its citizens. Jayant Sinha is a former head of the Omidyar Network in India – known to be run by the eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar. Sinha quit Omidyar to join Modi’s election campaign as an advisor. Soon after, Modi publicly endorsed the opening of India’s e-commerce market to FDI – a move that would massively benefit Omidyar who represents one of the foremost global corporate interests in e-commerce.
Cabinet apart, Modi’s chosen Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian, too has a record of being a blatant advocate of US corporate interests. As late as March 2013, he had advised US Congress on the “challenges” posed by India’s domestic “protectionism” to US business interests. Why is Modi’s hand-picked Economic Advisor a man with an IMF background, who believes India should stop protecting the interests of its people in order to benefit US businesses?
The inclusion of Giriraj Singh – the BJP MP from Nawada in Bihar – is yet another instance of Modi’s wink to corruption. A few months ago, a huge stash of cash – Rs 1.14 crore – was recovered from a thief who had stolen the amount from Singh’s house. Singh had only reported a theft of Rs 50,000. A red-faced Singh had offered the truly flimsy explanation that the cash belonged to his ‘cousin’ – a real estate builder with interests in Nagpur. But Giriraj Singh’s inclusion as Modi’s Cabinet Minister is significant for other reasons too. The BJP has, till now, claimed to distance the party and the Prime Minister from the poisonous communal and casteist utterances of various figures associated with the Sangh Parivar and BJP. While the ‘love jehad’ lie was a central vehicle of the BJP campaign in Uttar Pradesh, with MP Adityanath making especially vile speeches provoking violence on this pretext, the BJP claimed that Adityanath did not have the party’s and Modi’s approval. But Giriraj Singh’s elevation to Cabinet Minister gives the lie to BJP’s claims.
Giriraj Singh had, during the Lok Sabha election campaign counselled Modi’s critics, especially Muslims, to ‘go to Pakistan’. His statement openly mocked at democratic norms of the space for dissent, and displayed his vision of Modi’s rule as an authoritarian Hindu Nation with no room for minorities and dissenters. Giriraj Singh also openly defended Adityanath’s hate-speech and amplified it, endorsing the ‘love jehad’ lie quite openly. And Giriraj Singh is also notorious for having equated the Ranvir Sena chief Brahmeshwar Singh, who had the blood of massacres of dalit landless poor on his hands, with Gandhi. If Singh’s inclusion in Modi’s cabinet shows the communal-casteist-undemocratic face behind the ‘development’ mask, the inclusion of Nadda, Prabhu and Jayant Sinha reveal that ‘development’ in the Modi regime, as in the UPA regime that it replaced, will continue to mean corporate plunder, corruption and flagrant disregard for the environment and the country’s precious resources.
