Modi's Amrit Kaal is turning out to be a festive season of frauds. The Hindenburg report triggered a global storm by indicating the Adani group for 'the largest con in corporate history'. Close on the heels of the explosion of the Adani scam we had another explosive revelation. An alleged con man from Gujarat, Kiran Patel, who had been travelling across the state in z-plus security camouflaging as an Additional Director from the PMO, was arrested by the Kashmir police.
And now we have the stunning account of Sanjay Sherpuria unfolding in front of us. A self-styled 'social entrepreneur', Sanjay Rai from Sherpur village of Ghazipur in eastern UP had amassed a lot of money and power by launching fake companies and forging close ties with the top brass of the Sangh-BJP establishment and using that proximity to borrow huge sums from banks and getting big bribes from the rich and the powerful promising them various services including saving them from the ED.
We now learn that he has been arrested by UP STF. The SBI has declared him wilful defaulter for a sum of Rs 350 crore. While the SBI terms him a defaulter, the affidavit submitted by former Ghazipur MP and currently LG of Jammu and Kashmir Manoj Sinha attributes an unsecured loan of Rs 25 lakh to Mr Rai. Will we ever know the real masterminds behind frauds like Kiran Patel and Sanjay Sherpuriya? The Modi regime seems to have empowered not just Adani-Ambani style crony capitalism and vigilante squads that operate with impunity but also a whole network of innovative practitioners of fraudulence in high places. Democracy under Modi is fast degenerating into a combination of plutocracy, mobocracy and fraudocracy.
