With just a day left for the 2019 elections, the ruling BJP has been dealt three blows that made these polls a LOT more interesting.
The first blow came from the Supreme Court. The bench said it will allow new evidence in the hearing of review petitions seeking investigations into the Rafale deal.
The next blow came on the back of a comment by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who said that he sees better chances of peace talks if Modi is re-elected.
The final blow came from the Election Commission, which said that it would not allow the release of the PM Narendra Modi biopic starring Vivek Oberoi.
And now that we’ve established what happened so far, let’s get into some more detail. Listen to the podcast below:
Setback 1: SC Allows Rafale Deal Review Petition With Fresh Evidence
On 10 April, the Supreme Court ruled that it WILL allow 3 confidential documents to be admitted as evidence in the Rafale deal review petitions.
These documents, which were revealed by The Hindu newspaper, alleged that the Modi government had been informed by members of their own government’s Cabinet Committee on Security that there were several problems with the Rafale deal, including pricing as well as the process followed while making the deal.
The catch? Well that’s a two-parter. First, the Centre HADN’T disclosed the existence of these documents to the Supreme Court in the SEALED submission they’d made to the SC in November 2018, as a response to questions about the Rafale deal’s NUMEROUS lacunae.
Second, when the “confidential” documents WERE submitted as evidence in March 2019, when the petitioners moved the court for a review, the Attorney General, speaking for the government said they weren’t admissible as evidence because they’d been STOLEN, ie, obtained illegally and hence not admissible as evidence.
Which brings us to today. The Supreme Court dismissed the Centre’s objections on 10 April, and said that it WILL go ahead with hearing the review petitions in the Rafale case and that it WILL hear the case based on merits.
Our argument is that the court has been misled by the Centre. These documents show that a number of important things weren’t disclosed to the Supreme Court by the Centre in their sealed submissions in November 2018.Arun Shourie, Petitioner
The court will set a date for the hearing of the review petition soon. But the petitioners in this case now have not ONE but TWO issues to raise, Arun Shourie said.
The first is the review petition itself, which will be focused on the court’s December verdict dismissing a probe into the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale deal. The second is a petition for perjury against the officers who presented incomplete evidence or rather, hid this evidence from the Supreme Court when they made their submissions in November.
Of course, the Opposition, mainly the Congress who have been crying themselves hoarse about the Rafale deal, have taken the decision as a win. Here’s what Congress President Rahul Gandhi said after the verdict:
The SC has accepted that the PM has committed theft. The SC has admitted there was some corruption in Rafale. There are 2 names that must be named and probed in the investigation. The first is Narendra Modi and the second is Ambani.
Setback 2: No More NaMo TV, PM Modi Biopic or PM Modi Web Series... For Now
While the courts have made it clear that they will decide the fate of the Rafale deal, elsewhere the Election Commission finally made its presence also felt, by swooping in at the last minute and BANNING the PM Narendra Modi biopic.
After the Supreme Court said it wasn’t up to the judiciary to decide whether the movie should release, and after the CBFC said it was giving the movie a ‘Universal’ certificate, the movie which was scheduled to release on 11 April, ie, day 1 of polling, looked all set to release.
Until the Election Commission said they would NOT permit the release of any biopics serving any political entity’s purposes, or intended to disturb the level playing field of politics, especially not so close to the elections.
The Commission has also extended the ban to include NaMo TV as well as a 10-part web series about PM Modi.
Setback 3: Imran Khan Welcomes PM Modi’s Re-election, Opposition Slams BJP
And the final blow to the BJP? Well, we need to wind the clocks back to 9 April for that.
It started with a simple statement from Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. Khan said, in an interview with Reuters, that perhaps if the BJP came to power in India again, “some settlement could be made with regards to Kashmir”.
And then the floodgates opened.
The Opposition wasted no time and slammed PM Modi over this remark.
Former J&K chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti got the ball rolling by asking, “How long before we see a Chowkidar Imran Khan Twitter handle?” and that “bhakts” were left confused about whether they should praise Imran Khan or not.
The Congress, of course, jumped on board by saying that Pakistan has “officially allied” with Modi, adding that a vote for him would be a vote for the country we almost went to war with last month. The AAP reacted by saying that it was unprecedented that a Pakistan prime minister was “deciding” the fate of Indian elections.
All said and done, most definitely not the best of days for the BJP.
Now, the country will vote starting tomorrow, 11 April. Will these three setbacks affect the party’s chances?
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