How can my vote for the MEPs (European Parliament) have an influence?

Should Narendra Modi be cautious of Subramanian Swamy (politician) given his dubious past?

• In the early career, Dr Subramanian Swamy was assosiated with the Janta Party, however he was expelled in late 1970s.   Dr Subramanian Swamy was then, as everyone knows, an old friend of .   However, later, there were allegations that he was involved in the assasination of Rajeev Gandhi! - http://greatgameindia.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/subramanian-swamy-the-mossad-stooge-the-assassination-of-rajiv-gandhi/, http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?204614 and http://www.rediff.com/news/1998/jul/31jain.htm   Moving on, after the assasination of Rajeev Gandhi, he was the Cabinet minister for commerce, law and justice in Chandra Shekhar government.   After the government fell, SS went close to Narsimha Rao: 1994-96: Chairman with cabinet minister rank of labour and trade mission during PVN era   and he was also very close to Chandrasamy:   Then after few weak governments, the Vajpayee government came. And it fell in 13 days, then another time BJP won, this time with better hold on the parliament. On Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, these were the thoughts of Dr SS:   "Vajpayee is no Brahmin. He drinks alcohol and publicly claims that he is a bachelor but not a Bramachari." Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy on Monday said BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee should dissociate himself from the golden jubilee celebrations of the country's Independence, 'alleging that Mr Vajpayee had acted as a 'police informer' during the Quit India movement in 1942. In a statement here, Dr Swamy said he was shocked to see Mr Vajpayee in Mumbai on August 9 as guest of honour at the commemoration of the Quit India movement. He claimed there was documentary proof at the national archives to show that as a police witness, evidence tendered by Mr Vajpayee on August 21, 1942, before a Bateswar (near Agra) magistrate had led to the conviction of seven satyagrahis' to life-imprisonment on a false police FIR that they were engaged in arson and destruction. "Mr Vajpayee should apologise to the people for this." And this more that he wrote about  ABV: "From that day on wards, even if Morarji did nothing much for me politically, he was always on my side helping me where he could and I remained his friend till his last breath. When his Cabinet was formed, it was widely thought that I would be made a Cabinet Minister for my role in the Emergency, but Atal Behari Vajpayee, who had played a disgraceful role of writing an apology letter to Mrs.Gandhi during the Emergency - to come out on parole out of jail, - controlled 91 Jan Sangh MPs. Vajpayee was given to tremendous jealousy, and it is the root cause of the mess BJP is in today. He found my "Emergency Hero" status unbearable especially since he wanted to hide his own surrender shame. He therefore prevailed upon Morarji to offer me only a Minister of State with independent charge. Morarji also thought that at the age of 37, a Cabinet Ministership was too early." "Morarji helped me to break the ice with China. Vajpayee as Foreign Minister blocked my visit for one year, but in 1978, Morarji saw that I went first to China. He accepted my view about China, and rejected Vajpayee's, who was keen to keep the Soviet Union pleased. Even on Israel, Morarji accepted my view and invited Moshe Dayan to visit India." - It must be mentioned that Vajpayee is credited with opening relations with China. "Because of the factionalism in the Janata Party, during his tenure as PM, he could not make me a Cabinet Minister. Delhi was always abuzz with the rumour that he was about to induct me as Foreign Minister because he was fed up with Vajpayee's drinking habits whenever he went abroad or his indiscretion with women. But the 91 MPs of the Jan Sangh group was Vajpayee's strength, so Morarji kept postponing the date. Then there was the Raj Narain nuisance. However in June 1979, Raj Narain was expelled from the Janatha Party, and everything was under control-- or so it seemed. It was then I was confidently told by insiders that Morarji would bring me into the Cabinet in the September 1979 re-shuffle. That re-shuffle never came because Morarji quit office in July 1979. But the greatness of Morarji was exhibited in those trying moments when he was betrayed by colleague after colleague, each trying to become Prime Minister. Some got a bad name for it such as Charan Singh, but the real culprits were Vajpayee and Ramakrishna Hegde who pushed Morarji into a confrontation with Charan Singh, and then let Morarji down. Provoked by what he mistakenly took as Morarji induced insults, Charan Singh broke the party, and the Janatha Party lost majority. Then Vajpayee and Hegde produced a list of 279 MPs of which 23 MPs signatures were forged. The President Mr.Sanjiva Reddy was alerted to it by the IB, and he made it public. Morarji gallantly took the blame and quit public life. It should have been Vajpayee and Hegde who should have quit, but they left Morarji holding the bag and owning responsibility! Such was their character." Read more at http://bachelorenjoyingfruitsofmarriage.blogspot.sg/2011/10/subramaniam-swamy-on-atal-behari.html   Anyways, such was the hate of Subramanian Swamy for ABV that he conspired with other parties to pull down the 13 months government. He called Sonia, Jayalalitha and Mamata as Lakshmi, Saraswati and Durga!   Thankfully, in 1999 he lost the Loksabha election and ABV could finish his next 5 years! :-)   However, Dr SS was (and is?) a devout hater of RSS. Just read what he wrote about RSS on Frontline: http://www.hindu.com/fline/fl1702/17020950.htm The RSS game plan also has proposals to bridle the electoral system. Adult suffrage is out, but furthermore, the electoral college for the Lok Sabha will not vote for candidates, but for parties under a List System. Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) will be used in all the constituencies. Perhaps it is then easier to rig the outcome. After all, in the 1999 general elections, the BJP and its allies won 34 out of the 45 Lok Sabha constituencies which had EVMs. On that ratio, the NDA should have won 405 seats of the 544 Lok Sabha constituencies and not 292. EVMs have to be programmed by an engineer to tabulate the votes in its memory. It can easily be programmed to transfer votes of one candidate to another, or one party to another. The EVMs are entirely unsafeguarded today. I suspect it was rigged in the 1999 general elections. The RSS game plan is thus ready. Only the D-Day for the blitzkrieg is to be determined. Since it appears that the RSS has already been generating momentum on religious fundamentalist issues (for example, Gujarat's Ram temple) and raised the fanatical emo tional temperature (chasing of Christian missionaries), my guess is that this campaign will be taken to a fever pitch by November 9, 2001 (the 1986 date for shilanyas) and then mid-term elections will be called. Prime Minister Vajpayee will as usual waffle and wobble, but he will not resist. That is his nature; he is a mask for the RSS, as Commissar Govindacharya had once said. And that's not it, worse yet to come!   He has been seen with the Terrorist Bhindarwale: And even worse than that, he was regularly meeting with Ghulam Nabi Fai, the Kashmiri-American, who was arrested for receiving millions of dollars in funds from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to influence politicians and opinion makers on Kashmir. Later he said he wasn't aware of Fai's background! How convenient, isn't it?   http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/i-was-unaware-fai-was-an-undercover-agent-swamy/article2282617.ece. Very correctly, S Gurumurthy said that http://newindianexpress.com/opinion/article424245.ece (fake liberals).   And now this man is getting close to . I suggest Modi should be beware and cautious with him.

• Answer:

  Excellent compilation, but what makes you imagine Modi is unaware? My reading of Modi is that his focus is his own image as a messiah of those suffering under incompetents. I don't believe Modi has any specific love for either Hindus or RSS or Muslims (whose votes he is courting) or RSS or even BJP. They suit his agenda. Particularly their defense of 2002 riots keeps him from being discredited out of the room altogether. They on the other hand need him too. Apart from the "success" of the Gujarat 2002 riots under him (whether he failed to prevent or was complicit), the high TRPs associated with him and his clear agendas (even if they are strictly his own) are tempting for a party that is largely without leadership or direction these days. Swamy is similar when it comes to TRPs. He has been scathing about Gujarat riots, about RSS, about Vajpayee. Now he is scathing about Congress. But he is shrewd and knows how to court the limelight and fall on his feet no matter how asinine his stands. In that sense, he is not a liability to BJP or Modi, since he will always be arguing for himself and doesn't need defending. On the plus side, they can claim all the attention he gets for the party. And he gets a good amount of that with his pursuit of scams (He's done more to chase those corrupts than the entire BJP put together) and his PILs in court and what not - not all of which is evil. In my view Swamy is less evil as he is mercurial. He thinks one thing and goes with that, then he changes his mind. Not that either is useful for the public in the manner he goes about it. In my view, politics is less about alliances and more about whatever is convenient to retain power. Of course ethics or values or national interest are important. For making speeches.