Editorial

Just five days before India goes for the protracted seven-phase Lok Sabha elections, the ruling BJP released a 76-page manifesto. It does not talk about the Modi government's failure and betrayal on every promise it has been making since 2014, it does not address the core issues that are on top of the common people's agenda, instead it weaves a rosy dream for India in 2047!

April 11 and 14 mark the birth anniversaries of two of India's greatest names in the battle for social equality - Jyotirao Phule and Babasaheb Ambedkar. This year we are celebrating the 197th birth anniversary of Phule (11 April 1827 - 28 November 1890) and the 133rd anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar (14 April 1891 - 6 December 1956).

The Modi government has evidently been rattled by the belated striking down of the Electoral Bond scheme by the Supreme Court and the disclosure of the donor and recipient details. Lawyers associated with the BJP have mounted an orchestrated campaign to harass the CJI and intimidate the judiciary. Prime Minister Modi has not only thrown his full weight behind this campaign by endorsing the letter signed by the dubious group of lawyers, he is missing no opportunity to justify the bonds system struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Massive propaganda blitzkrieg around the Modi cult and unprecedented use of money power have been the defining hallmarks of the Modi mode of electioneering since the launch of the 'Modi for PM' campaign in 2013. Over the last ten years both these factors have grown by leaps and bounds.

The data submitted regarding the Electoral Bonds by the SBI, though incomplete, have already revealed a very murky pattern around this now defunct unconstitutional scheme. There are several anomalies and gaps, especially the unique Bond numbers which the SBI did not disclose, that have still not made it possible to establish specific donor-recipient links. Hopefully those links will be known once the SBI is forced to furnish the suppressed and missing details.

On the eve of the expected announcement of the poll schedule we now suddenly have a series of major political developments. On the Electoral Bond issue, the Supreme Court has rejected the SBI plea for more time for submission of relevant data about the sale and encashment of electoral bonds. Desperate attempts by the Modi government and SBI to defer the disclosure of the Electoral Bond data till after the elections have failed, and the country now awaits the publication of the data by the Election Commission of India.

While striking down the Electoral Bond scheme as unconstitutional, the Supreme Court had asked the State Bank of India, the issuing agency of electoral bonds, to disclose full details about the bonds issued and encashed during the pendency of the EB case before the Supreme Court. The deadline for the SBI to disclose the donor, recipient and amount details to the Election Commission of India was 6 March while the EC was to publicise the information by 13 March.

A five-member constitution bench of the Supreme Court has finally struck down the Modi Government's Electoral Bond scheme as being unconstitutional. The scheme has indeed been one of the most brazen scams in recent years and it is great to see the Supreme Court finally taking the call and pronouncing a verdict that will go down as a heartening vindication of the rights of the people in a democracy, especially in the unequal battle against corporate power in today's India.

The last parliament session of Modi 2.0 ended on 10 February with the adoption of a self-congratulatory resolution by the regime for the construction of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh had already adopted a similar resolution in the UP Assembly on 5 February congratulating both Modi and Yogi for the construction of temple. Yogi Adityanath is of course not content with just claiming credit for Ayodhya, with support from the judiciary his government is now focused on the next Sangh battlegrounds of Kashi and Mathura.

Ten years ago Narendra Modi had come to power with the slogan of 'Congress-mukt Bharat'. Over the ten years of its existence the Modi government has tried to centralise and concentrate all powers around it by all means. Moving on from the slogan of 'Congress-mukt Bharat', the Modi regime has been aggressively pursuing its agenda of an 'opposition-free democracy'. Non-BJP governments have been toppled and replaced by BJP-led governments by engineering defections and breaking parties and coalitions at will.