Zamir  Ahmad

The new world order seems to be one of scams. Even in a tiny speck of a place on the globe called J&K, this global order seems to have taken roots deep and down. Though the scams—small and big—regularly come in the public domain, there are some large scams that capture one’s  attention for long and become food for coffee shop analysts for quite some time. In our case, the newsmaker scams—not necessarily in that order— have been of a news paper report about a minister acquiring real estate in a gulf state, a minister being sacked for facilitating impersonation of his daughter in an examination, not less than seven legislators of a right-wing unionist party caught in a cash for vote scam, a power broker dying in custody while being asked for settling some shady transactions in the CM’s office, of a minister’s son being a centre of storm in an examination cheating case and the subsequent resignation drama and more recently the “re-fanged” State Accountability Commission initiating inquiry against the Finance minster for alleged irregularities in allotment of certain projects.

Except for the incident involving death in custody of the political power broker, all the other scams follow a pattern. In all these cases the persons involved—and mind it, all these are high and mighty people—have uniformly and repeatedly—alleged a conspiracy behind their fall. In the recent case involving the Finance Minister, the minister has reportedly told the media that “a vilification campaign is going on against him for last two years.” He is also reported to have said that “some people” were trying to target his ministry by hatching a deep rooted conspiracy. Conspiracy theories were also attributed two years earlier to selective leaks to certain media outlets regarding the said minister’s alleged property deal in UAE. And when the Ex- works minister was axed, he too cried a martyr to machinations of “some people”. Same was the case with the legislators of the BJP who in their numerous press conferences alleged conspiracy behind their disgraceful act of voting for cash in the assembly. Quite recently, the then former education minister was seen fuming when the case of his son been helped by BOSE officials to pass an examination became public after two long years. He openly castigated “some people” who had hatched a conspiracy against him and vowed to expose them soon.

Is there an invisible hand working in the state? Going by the words of the high and mighty who have been frost nipped, it seems there is. And if ministers of cabinet rank allege the handiwork of an invisible hand behind their downfall or after their reputation then it is a serious matter. A democratically elected government cannot afford to have a king maker in its echelons making stealth moves every now and then. This king maker, if he really exists, cuts across all party lines as anyone from the ruling party , its coalition partner or the oppositions parties can be at the receiving end of his strategic moves . One can only pray that  there is no such person. And if there is let the hand of God take care of this “invisible hand”.

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