Suspected Infirmities In Jay Shah's Firm Raise Doubts Over Probity

While neither the case involved government contracts or projects, it has removed the sheen of morality and “unimpeachable integrity” Prime Minister Modi has sought and claimed.

- Sriram Karri

Speaking at a program to launch his book, ‘Why Scams Are Here To Stay’, in Hyderabad a couple of months ago, Chairman of The Hindu Group of Publications, N Ram, revealed how Bofors came as a bolt from the sky to shred the image of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, erasing the sobriquet of Mr Clean, and eventually trounce the government which had the largest majority in a democracy known to human history.

Narendra Modi has an image premium even larger than the late Rajiv Gandhi and a humongous majority in the Lower House enjoyed by none since the Congress lost power in 1989. “I will not eat or let anyone eat”, declared Modi, figuratively, referring to bribes and corruption – the biggest factor for the rout of the UPA-2.

The Report

With her piece in The Wire, headlined, ‘The Golden Touch of Jay Amit Shah’, senior journalist Rohini Singh on October 8, has given the first opening against the BJP Government on the issue of corruption.

The report, drawing from mandatory Registrar of Companies(RoC) filings of Jay Shah, son of the BJP president Amit Shah, argued that the turnover of Shah’s Temple Enterprise Private Ltd., a Jay Shah-owned company, increased astronomically from Rs 50,000 to Rs 80 crore in a year, making a 16,000-fold rise in one year after Modi became Prime Minister.