Eggs imported from Andhra Pradesh with great difficulty are now considered valueless. Every other day, when the masses feel disgusted with public servants, mostly politicians including Ministers and other people’s representatives, to express the feeling, they keep eggs ready to be lobbed at them. No Indian politician today comes by public transport or walking. They all come by expensive vehicles with sycophants and soothsayers in tow. So, the vehicles take the soft beating. Only a little soiling occurs. That’s all.
Protesters are rising in number everywhere because more and more politicians and public officials are emerging as daylight robbers after public scrutiny is methodically done. Sanjay Dasburma is known for all the wrong reasons. He had messed up allotment of houses when he was Chairman of the State Housing Board. He had acquired a couple of houses himself but hurriedly sold them away the moment public outcry was heard. His tenure also witnessed all influential public officials getting houses at all prime-location projects.
Sanjay is now dealing with civil supplies and food matters. The age-old corrupt domain of civil supplies was eventually cleansed with rejection of millions of food security documents called ‘ration cards’ being abused by the mean wealthy including public servants of all hues.
Shockingly however, after the rigorous exercise of identifying and rejecting the branded and established rich was over, people tracked down the Mayor of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation cheating the State. She happens to be an innocent human female who posed as a pauper and stole a ration card to save only a few hundred rupees on wheat and kerosene every month. The news of a leading mayor pocketing poor citizens’ food spread like wild fire and official sleuths with a sense of integrity dug more into the murky waters to fish out more thieves in officials. No wonder, more people’s representatives from the rural regions also got identified for ration card loot. The latest ruling as per the National Food Security Act renders people with a concrete house and four-wheelers, et cetera, ineligible for getting subsidised provision cards in any manner.
It has been found out that quite a few BJD workers, Zilla Parsihad members, Corporators and Councillors are involved in the ration card irregularities. Notably, a ration card has been issued to a Puri Municipal Councillor and a Zilla Parishad vice-chairperson under the NFSA. The Councillor got jittery and stealthily had his ration card placed back. Puri Zilla Parishad President Dibakar Patra’s wife Kabita Patra was also issued a ration card. But the matter was hushed up and no action has been taken to set an example of no sparing any offender, no matter how high and mighty.
The ration card matter was a big clandestine business for low-integrity, populist politicians of India. They would prevail over the officials to twist and misinterpret rules to placate their sycophants mainly rogues and scoundrels by allotting ration shops and ration cards to them who would distribute cards among nonexistent beneficiaries so that the grains, pulses and kerosene are sold in black reaping high profits off record. Way back in 2008, the Union Government declared on April 21 that the States had by then issued 10.28 crore ration cards to Below Poverty line families although official figures showed that there were only 6.52 crore families that fell under that category around that time.
The 3.70-crore excess ration cards were obviously bogus and the matter was brought to the notice of the respective State Governments. The then Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said in the lok Sabha during a Question Hour, quoting the Planning Commission, that the ghastly estimates were correct. He had further said that most of the States were taking action by cancelling the ration cards of countless ineligible families after his instruction to do so without delay.
As many as 13 States, including Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Odisha, had cancelled more than 67.45 lakh bogus ration cards after July 2006.
The big worry happened only after populist governments violated the Constitutional recommendation for making local self-governance, both urban and rural, to be run by nonpartisan people’s representatives who were morally strong and like volunteers at social work. The day established political parties took seize, all kinds of corruption, nepotism and immoral activities became rampant. The political parties became so obsessed with partisan interests that the students at universities too were indoctrinated onto the political ideologies which corrupted the young minds permanently. In the local self-governance domains, needless to mention, the neighbourhood do-gooder could never enter the local political arena; so only crooks with dirty money and criminal muscles are able to force their way into the local body elections and win hands down.
The BJD of Odisha with Naveen Patnaik as a reputed Chief Minister must reform the political system to prove that he means business of ethics. His illustrious father had unwittingly erred on this count because he could never foresee such disaster would occur soon. If he had been alive at 99, he would have made the local governance nonpartisan and the student politics free of political scoundrels and dirt money. Naveen could do wonders by putting every political candidate to a rigorous ‘integrity scrutiny’ by the general public. Ten adverse reports should disqualify anyone from fighting elections with hefty dirt money amassed by all wrong means.
The ration card thieves are heinous in mind because they have robbed the poor of their survival food and fuel. Apart from mean politicians, there are meaner, bureaucratic officials who have also stolen the poor citizen’s grain and oil. That the Chief Minister has not tossed them already into the prison cell or judicial custody is not taken well. Exemplary punishment can only act a robust deterrent for all in times to come. Or else, it may have the terrible sloth speed of the hyper-hyped Swachh Bharat call by Modi. The Swachh dream remains wild only because there is no clarity of offence and the corresponding punishment like in civilised countries, including Singapore. The Swachh Bharat mission has remained confined to populist photo publicity and political gimmicks only.
Eggs now have become the costliest in two decades on record. The protesters are stupid. Instead of stirring the imagination of the Chief Minister, they spoilt his Ministers’ cars temporarily. The lady mayor of Cuttack is still happy and comfortable. The officers who have stolen ration cards are not likely to land in trouble. They will come out clean by showing clerical errors in good time.
The Zilla Parishad President’s wife and the Cuttack Mayor are indeed empowered women. Hence, they can steal and remain safe for quite some time. No instant action is going to be taken. The BJD honchos must be working day in and day out to come up with some plea or the other to protect the party women from infamy.
Indira Gandhi lost power in 1977 and suffered the worst humiliation. But on this day in 1980, she made a most dramatically heroic comeback. She knew the techniques of empowering herself. Unfortunately, she never shared the technique with other human females. So during her stints, males served her as advisors, consultants and mentors.
Hopefully, all ration card thieves of Odisha would be nabbed before the weekend. Because getting records is so easy today. And the thieves beware! The RTI activists are working fulltime.
(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha).