April 3, 2014
I went to meet a senior bureaucrat who is considered close to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Another bureaucrat was also present. One of them said, “Fear is creeping in; this man [Modi] is coming and we could not even put a new Lokpal in place; that will be an instrument of harassment; even the CBI director has joined the BJP camp.” We also discussed the case of Sanjeev Tripathi, who till a few months ago was RAW chief and had recently joined the BJP. It was recalled that till a few weeks ago he had been seeking ‘accommodation’ from the government and had even met the prime minister to that end. The two bureaucrats recalled “how K.C. Verma [Sanjeev Tripathi’s immediate predecessor] was made to resign a month before his retirement, so that Sanjeev Tripathi could be named RAW chief. If Verma had completed his full term, Sanjeev Tripathi would have been knocked out.”
Later, I met a few friends from the media over lunch. One of the journalists told us a most revealing incident: “Yesterday,...
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