The prosecution failed miserably in the sensational Datta Samant murder case. At 11.30am, Samant, 63, was gunned down by four motorcycle-borne contract killers on January 16, 1997. Despite allegations that Chhota Rajan was the mastermind behind the murder, the prosecution was unable to prove his involvement. Not only this, the prosecution was also not able to track down the industrialist who is reported to have given a big ‘supari’ to the underworld to bump off the militant trade union leader who had created havoc in his factory. It appears that this murder will also join the list of unsolved crimes in the annals of the Mumbai police.
Bleak southern horizon
The BJP is worried about its reducing presence in south India which has 130 Lok Sabha seats. One of the reasons is believed to be the relatively poor allocation of funds generated by GST compared to Gujarat. The fear is that the party's performance in the 2024 LS elections will be poor despite its improved organisational presence in the south. Hence, efforts are being made to correct the imbalance in fund allocation. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai's statewide 'padayatra' is not receiving the kind of response the party was expecting. Annamalai, an ex-IPS officer, is trying to imitate Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's Bharat jodo yatra. But factionalism in the party is impacting his march. In any case, the central leadership of the party is not fully happy with him.
TACIT UNDERSTANDING
It’s a mystery that during the nine years of its rule, the BJP has not been able to act against Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi. Earlier, the BJP had levelled all kinds of allegations against him. But despite having all the central agencies under its command, the party has not been able to move its little finger against him. One of the reasons apparently is that Vadra is the man who knows a lot about an industrialist close to the ruling party. Hence, he has been left alone. Even in the National Herald case, it was Dr Subramanian Swamy who moved the court against Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and not the government.
Tailpiece:
We had earlier revealed in this column how a Mumbai newspaper is sending printed copies to a depot in south Mumbai in a tempo and approximately 55% of it is taken back in another tempo to be sold as “raddi”. This item rattled it so much that now it has stopped unloading raddi copies at the depot for fear of being exposed. Now it is only unloading actual sales copies and taking the raddi back in the same tempo. In fact, it has reduced its supply of actual copies in this depot by over 150. It is now a double whammy since its actual sales are declining and the price of raddi is also on the downslide!! Bechara!!
