The sting bee sucks!

On Sunday, the saying “the pot calling the kettle black” came true when high-profile Samajwadi Party MP Amar Singh released the CD of a sting operation alleging that the BSP MPs were collecting huge amounts of money for Mayawati’s birthday celebrations.
The sting operation comes in the backdrop of the recent murder of Uttar Pradesh PWD engineer Manoj Gupta allegedly by sitting BSP MLA Shekhar Tiwari. Gupta was murdered apparently after he refused to pay up.
But there’s more to the sting than meets the eye. The principal architect and conductor of the sting is Sanjay Tiwari Ujala, a self-styled journalist with dubious credentials.
Ujala has several cases lined up against him in Delhi’s courts for “extortion” and “blackmail” after he conducted  a number of similar sting operations.
Ujala earlier ran a small-time newspaper Northeast Times and now runs a website tiranganews.com. 
Last year, the New Delhi district Police had arrested Ujala in a case of extortion and impersonation on the complaint of tribal MPs from the Northeast and Jharkhand. Ujala had allegedly been blackmailing these politicians on the basis of ‘sting operations’. He has also been accused of extorting and blackmailing some LPG gas dealers.  So, has Amar Singh, famously labelled as “motormouth” for his drop-of-a-hat media conferences, jumped the gun this time? Did he know Tiwari’s background before he conducted Sunday’s press conference where he released the CD? When MetroNow tried to contact Amar Singh’s office, there was no response. Tiwari, however, defended his role.
“We came to know from our sources that BSP leaders were converting millions of black money into white. It was income-tax evasion. The BSP leaders had been carrying out this exercise for a long time, especially at the time of Mayawati’s birthday celebrations,” Tiwari said.
“I have put more than 150 LPG dealers and middlemen behind bars and registered 70 FIRs all over Delhi. And now in this case of BSP, I want Mayawati behind bars. The investigation should be conducted by a high level authority. While doing such sting operations, I always fear for my life. But this is real journalism,” Tiwari said.

What do you think? Has SP jumped the gun and ruined the chances of a probe against Mayawati?

Batla-ka-dabra

The Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh’s attacks on the Congress-led UPA government on the Batla House encounter has confused political analysts. Internal sources in the SP say that the party is making it a poll issue for the coming Delhi Assembly election.
According to the sources, the encounter issue will provide a major boost for the SP during the Delhi Assembly polls as the party is planning to fight elections in the Muslim-dominated areas. There are 12 Assembly constituencies in the city where Muslim voters are in dominance and it is said that the party has already identified those constituencies. These include Okhla, Ballimaran, Chandni Chowk, Jangpura, Seelampur, Gandhinagar, Matia Mahal and few others.
The SP leaders feel that they are receiving positive response from the minority community after the party’s demand for judicial probe on the encounter.
Although the Congress Party is striving for an alliance with the SP in Uttar Pradesh, it is not in favour of any seat-sharing arrangement in Delhi. This despite the fact that the BSP, considered to be a threat to both the parties, has been preparing for the Delhi Assembly polls for a long time. The BSP had won 17 seats in the MCD elections and has already announced names of its candidates for the Assembly polls.
With the Congress already facing problems from the BSP and the BJP, it is now keeping a close watch on the SP. A senior Congress leader says that the party is waiting for the formal announcement by SP for a seat-sharing arrangement in UP. He further says that if minority mood changes it could affect Congress’ performance in the election.

Do you approve Batla House Encounter as a poll issue? Are our politicians largely responsible for inciting communal frenzy? What are you views on this?

Don’t prick we are already bleeding

Amar Singh is full-time politician and part-time buffoon; people have little expectation from him. But his latest outburst against the police at Jamia Nagar hits the bottom of vote-mongering. At a time when the locality is abuzz with doubts, both genuine and unfounded, he chose to use a lie to uphold the truism of politics: nail the vote. We already have the Parivar members hell-bent upon alienating Muslim minds by branding them as terrorists or terror-sympathisers, now a capitalist Samajwadi has joined forces with them, albeit in the cloak of sympathising with Jamia residents.
He uses this dangerous tactic to distance his party from its new-found love: the Congress. For the record, Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma was not transferred out of the Special Cell on the day of the encounter. He was one of the key members of the team assigned the job of busting the network behind Delhi blasts. There is no dispute about it. He ‘could’ have been shifted had he been alive. But he was still there in the special cell and actively pursuing people suspected of involvement in the September 13 blasts. That he is dead doesn’t answer all the questions about the encounter, neither does it prove those who were present at L-18, Batla House, guilty. But saying Mohan Chand Sharma was transferred and that he went there looking for martyrdom is not only a lie, but a lie that could vitiate an already charged atmosphere. This lie came from a man who first sympathised and eulogised the inspector and sent a cheque of Rs 10 lakh to his family. Hypocrisy is not the word here.
THE HALF-TRUTHS
Delhi Police records say that Inspector Sharma was never transferred out from Special Cell’s New Delhi range. “Inspector M.C. Sharma was very much in the Special Cell and to say that he was transferred to some other unit is not correct,” said Delhi Police Public Relations Officer Rajan Bhagat. Even if one does not go by the police version, Sharma was yet to be relieved of his duties and till he was relieved of his duties he was very much a part of the squad assigned the job. Amar Singh jumped the gun again by accusing other police officers of bumping Sharma off. Well many say so. And it might well be the truth but Amar Singh wasn’t gossiping at a roadside tea stall with his buddies. It was a public meeting ostensibly to calm the people who are offended by the sheer opacity of such encounters. The police and the administration must make these encounters more transparent, and urgently so.
Amar Singh has every right to demand a judicial inquiry into the encounter. At present, every encounter is followed by a magisterial enquiry and a report is duly sent to the National Human Right Commission. But a judicial inquiry is imperative here because the truth, now up in smoke, must come out to counter cynicism on both sides.
ACCUSING PATIL OF WORKING
In his new-found zeal to distance himself from his new-found ally Congress, Singh also accused Home Minister Shivraj Patil, now notorious for his incompetence in handling internal security, of directing the Batla House raid from the police headquarters. The truth is Shivraj Patil was at the police headquarters to inaugurate the refurbished Police Control Room. Accusing Patil of competence, however backhanded, is actually a compliment.
Singh is free to send love letters to Patil, but politicians must stop aping the Narendra Modi style of politics. It is time to find the truth behind the encounter, not to indulge in an endless encounter of words. Amar Singh’s shameless attempt to firmly put Muslims in a corner may end up alienating more young minds, already cornered by the virulent campaigns by terrorists of the Sangh Parivar kind. His love, Congress, is fighting shy of telling him to shut his trap.

Don’t you think it’s time both saffron and other shades stopped stoking the fire?