Author: Siddhartha Reddy
Publication: The Asian Age
Date: July 20, 2004
Sonia Gandhi by design or default
has picked the same financial team that Manmohan Singh's first political
boss P.V. Narasimha Rao had chosen, the team that ensured misery
for India's farming, working and manufacturing classes, resulting
in the 1996 electoral defeat. An ominous sign. This time around,
the team has a dangerous problem to tackle: the unfolding Telgi scam.
It is partly an inheritance from 1995.
Counterfeit currency and fake stamp
papers are a drain on India's economy. Investigations could reveal
the presence of an intricate international network of global terrorism
indulging in currency counterfeiting, fake stamp-making and economic
destabilisation. The whole process involves officials, businessmen
and politicians in several countries. This network is looting billions
from the public exchequer, with terrorists manufacturing counterfeit
currency notes. Narco trade is now redundant, so is hawala. South
Asia is now the international hub for counterfeit notes.
Reserve Bank of India in 1995 replaced
the Giori currency printing machines from Switzerland with the inferior
Komori machines, overruling written objections to Manmohan Singh
from Somnath Chatterji. After 1995, India was flooded with counterfeit
notes which were indistinguishable from the notes that were printed
by RBI's Komori machines.
Intelligence agencies know that
along Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in Al Qaeda territory, high quality
counterfeit Indian currency notes are being printed on machines controlled
by the ISI. Similar operations are on around the border areas of
Nepal-China, Bangladesh and Burma. You do not need an invading army
to destroy a country any longer. Machines to print counterfeit notes
can do more damage than any hostile army.
The process of damage control began
in 1999 when printing Indian currency on Giori machines resumed in
Switzerland. In 2002 India signed an agreement with Giori for the
manufacture of equipment with repair facilities in India.
Now to the specifics of Telgi stamp
paper scandal. Abdul Kareem Telgi, after returning from Saudi Arabia,
set up a job racket cheating people wanting to work in the Gulf.
He was arrested in December 1993 and when in jail met share broker
Ram Ratan Soni. He learnt from him nitty-gritty of fake stamp paper
business. Thus was born the Telgi empire. It flourished and conquered
India's stamp circuit during regimes of Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram
and Yashwant Sinha. BJP finance minister Yashwant Sinha allowed Nasik
Security Press to sell machines and dyes to Telgi. On a request letter
from Ram Jethmalani, Sinha promoted Gangaram, the official who facilitated
the sale to Telgi.
The home ministry has identified
Telgi's clientele: 52 builders, 48 banks and 61 private companies.
Telgi sold fake stamp paper across 100 towns and 22 states. Telgi's
counterfeit stamp paper pumped out nearly
Rs 100,000 crores from India's public
exchequer into the private coffers of Telgi, policemen, bureaucrats,
bankers, stock brokers, businessmen, terrorists and politicians.
Telgi's men, ordinary police officials with salaries less than Rs
10,000 a month, now have mind-boggling assets. Imagine the volumes
accumulated by Telgi's politicians.
Suspicion is not guilt and all those
named from the political class cannot be condemned suo moto. But
Bal Thackeray, L.K. Advani and Sonia Gandhi must expel the leaders
who have acquired the Telgi stink. Otherwise, their credibility will
be no better than Telgi's.
Sangram Singh, a Karnataka police
officer, related to state's CM, Dharam Singh has said that Rs 20
crores were collected by Congress leaders from Telgi to pay a ransom
to Veerappan. How many more crores did Congressmen collect for themselves?
Is Dharam Singh using Sangram Singh to blacken previous CM S.M. Krishna?
Sangram Singh's father-in-law is Dharam Singh's brother and contested
for the Assembly on a BJP ticket in 1984. Has he been motivated by
the BJP to name just Congressmen?
The Telgi-tainted Roshan Baig was
inducted into the Congress by Ghulam Nabi Azad. He was given a safe
seat to become an MLA and was made a minister. Why was Ghulam Nabi
Azad promoting and protecting Baig? Why is Sonia Gandhi protecting
Azad?
Sonia Gandhi must drop those leaders
who have come under the Telgi cloud, expel them from the party, and
punish the guilty. So should Manmohan Singh. Before the Harshad Mehta
bubble burst, when financial analysts screamed warnings, finance
minister Manmohan Singh's response was, "I don't lose sleep over
what happens in the share market." This time he must lose sleep.
Telgi's men could bring down the
government if payments are linked to Congress' apex leadership. Manmohan's
first boss P.V. Narasimha Rao allowed the likes of Harshad Mehta
to have a field day, and ended up losing his government, the Congress
presidentship and also his credibility. Manmohan's second boss, Sonia
Gandhi, better watch out!
