I was a very young person and had just joined work with a bank as a junior officer when my brother-in-law decided to take me around the defence colony in the town that he lived in - he was then a major in the Army. He drove me around the colony and showed me numerous houses which were on fairly large sized plots of land ranging between 500 to 700 square yards. I was curious and read the name plates - most house owners' names were a proud display of ranks ranging from Lieutenant to majors and Lieutenant Colonels/Colonels. I asked my brother-in-law, an infantry officer, to drive me around once again through the colony because I believed I had made an interesting observation.

These large sized houses, apparently, with 5 to 6 bed rooms belonged to officers from the services viz A.S.C or A.O.C. etc and the largest ones were of two engineers officers who had served for a long time in M.E.S. appointments. There was one small house on about 200 yards with not more than two bed rooms - the name on the board was, Major General XYZ, AVSM, VrC. When I conveyed this rather strange 'phenomenon' to my infantry man brother-in-law, he said that those who are honest (or have no opportunity to help themselves) meet this kind of material fate in today's India. That did set me thinking and I have found that this phenomenon is visible and, perhaps, applicable within India.

My observation was confirmed in the second round.

The country today witnesses numerous cases of politicians and bureaucrats with property and other assets highly incommensurate with their legitimate sources of income especially in case of the former. Some such assets are held in benami deals while many are in the form of property and investments with the facade of relatives' ownership. I shall briefly mention two such cases (out of many) of the Chief Ministers of two of the states in the Indian Union.

First case is that of UP chief Minister who has assets which she is unable to account for and therefore she calls them gifts from her admiresrs (political admires and followers). The case is sub judice and we are all aware that there is considerable wheeling and dealing in progress between the Bahujan Samajwadi Party of the lady and UPA at the centre. Successive hearing as well as investigations are attempted to be scuttled depending on the cuent relationship between the two political groupings at any given time.

Second case is that of Pawan Chamling, the Chief Minister of Sikkim. The Chief Minister was a constable in pre-merger Sikkim Police who was dismissed from service for a transgression considered to be of  a serious nature. Post merger, his stars changed and he found himself to be an effective rabble rouser who ultimately rose to the dizzy heights of Chef Ministership. The elevation is so dizzy that enough has been harvested by his vision for advancement of the state that he rules which he seems to consider to be ananlogous to his personal advancement. CNN-IBN did a story on the case only to receive threats from the party of the Chief Minister for legal action etc but nothing happened since there was not much that can be done to disprove what the news channel had reported. Local papers that carried this story were forcibly removed (or purchased) from the news sands by the police personnel. 

CNN-IBN missed the all important story of farudulent enrichment of self by Mrs Bishnu Maya Rai, Mr Chamiling's sister-in-law, who duped many gullible investors in her company, Bharosa International. It is only the perseverence of some amongst the latter, not so gullible, that she was reluctantly apprehended. CNN-IBN failed to mention the brewery that manufactures Sailo wines in Sikkim and also the Wai Wai noodles factory owned by Chamling Jr.

No one in Sikkim has forgotten how the Sikkim Police, a few years ago, severed the transmission of the then cable operator, Siti Cable, and replaced them with Nayuma Cable owned by Mr Chamling's family. Nayuma, it appears, exercises sole rights on most of the government sponsored business in handicrafts, civil supplies, dairy products etc.

He has been sued by some members of the Sikkim State Congress (I). In the meantime, money power seems to have obtained reprieve for him in the sub judice disproportionate assets case by repeated postponements. 

We wait and watch - the country suffers while the honest tax payer of India, seemingsly ungrudgingly,  continues to pay for the personal enrichment of these not so worthy politicians and their ilk.