Poor judgement lets Sushma Swaraj down
Neither she nor Vasundhara Raje is guilty of dipping into public funds.
The monsoon session of Parliament will soon be upon us. Unless the political storm over two powerful women politicians’ close nexus with Lalit Modi is quelled it may be hard to manage the aggressive shouters and protesters. The Congress, in particular, seems to have latched on to the indiscretions and improprieties of Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje — and they are no more than that, at least thus far — and is trying to make a feast of the tiny morsels in order to make a scam of the kind it had created in its time in power and for which it is justifiably notorious.
Indeed, while we come to the two errant women in a moment, let us dispose of the Congress pretensions. Were all politics to adhere to the Biblical commandment about only him who has not sinned throwing the first stone, the Congress would have been out of business long, long ago. But if it chooses to throw stones at others, it does so in the belief that the public memory is short and that soon the voters, who had dumped it most contemptuously only last year, would per force bring it back.
They might not. Should better counsel prevail, the Congress would stop making too much ho-ha over what are the first signs of misconduct by senior BJP leaders. Whether it is Swaraj or Raje, the important point is that in neither case has the public treasury been looted even of a khota paise. What the two powerful leaders have done is certainly wrong, and for that they must be made to make amends. At least, Swaraj ought to have volunteered to quit. Her fault was greater. She tried to help a fugitive economic offender behind the back of everyone in the government, including the Foreign Office.
Quite clearly, Swaraj was fully aware that what she was doing was wrong, but she nonetheless did so in the hope that it would stay secret. Lalit Modi had the Indian Foreign Minister, no less, pulling strings on his behalf with the British for procuring the travel papers. But truth has a way of popping up when you least expect it to. The British media was going after Keith Vaz, senior Labour MP and chairman of the Home Affairs Select Affairs Committee for intervening on behalf of the Indian fugitive when, co-incidentally, Swaraj’s questionable role cropped up.
Why Swaraj couldn’t say no to Modi is not hard to understand. Her husband Swaraj Kaushal and daughter Bansuri were both Modi’s lawyers. In fact, Kaushal was house guest of Modi in London. So, the family’s pecuniary interests received primacy, not correct ministerial norms and procedures. And that is where the nub of the Swaraj controversy lies. It is unfortunate that someone so senior, so eloquent would always make wrong judgement calls.
Not long ago, she had emerged as a great patron of the Bellary brothers. Indeed, when the Reddy brothers plonked themselves in expensive five-star suites in Delhi, Swaraj felt obliged to ensure that senior BJP leaders called on them. Some did readily, others reluctantly. Talking of Swaraj’s indiscretions, a bit earlier her name was linked with a wannabe Delhi politician, Romesh Sharma, who later turned out to be a criminal. Sharma is now cooling his heels in the Tihar jail on a number of criminal charges. It so happened that even the Reddy brothers soon Dikshit and former LG Vijai Kapoor had a good working relationship is a credit for both. Confrontationist Kejriwal would have rubbished Vijai Kapoor too. That is how he functions. He is a shrewd, ambitious man with powerful backers with vested interests, including the media. found themselves in prison for unlawful mining and other racketeering.
Indeed, we have a feeling that the latest protégé of Swaraj too could be in prison. We will return to Lalit Modi in a moment. Let us consider why Swaraj tends to patronise the wrong kind of people. Both she and her husband being from lower middle class — her father was an Ayuervedic vaidya, his an assistant in the Punjab University secretariat — they have been trying to climb the greasy pole of greed and sleaze. Politics affords ample opportunities to social climbers. Both were Socialist Party activists in their student days and studied law. But neither achieved success as lawyers the way, say, a Kapil Sibal or an Arun Jaitley did. Seen in the above perspective, it is natural for them to claim “family friendship” of decades with someone like Lalit Modi, isn’t it? Now about the flamboyant and brash Lalit Modi. As a student in the US, he was arrested for drug possession and kidnapping and given two-year suspended sentence after he had confessed to the above crimes. The Rajiv Gandhi government reportedly came to his rescue, though nobody raised an objection at the time, probably because he was the son of an industrialist. That was then. By now, everyone is aware about the IPL scam under Modi.
Just when the heat was in Patna. The BJP is likely to campaign on the agenda of development and governance and also highlight that it is ruling at the Centre — a huge advantage for a state wanting to catch up. No one may vote for Lalu Yadav or an alliance of which he is a part. This may be the reason why Nitish Kumar will finally meet his Waterloo — in Patna. makes sense when we compare it with that of the US and other nations. The US won its freedom from Britain with the help of the French — the enemy’s enemy. George Washington did not defeat Britain in war but made it very hard for it to continue. So, by creating INA and forcing Britain to invest effort and money to fight it, Netaji made it expensive for the British. The political upheaval caused because of the INA trials (1946) was the result of this effort: it united the nation and created mutiny in the army. Within a year of starting it, the British left India in a hurry, as they did not want to deal with the mutiny in the Army (post World War II, it was not feasible). turned on him, he fled the country. A blue corner notice was issued. But afterwards, the government chose to do nothing. P. Chidambaram now waxes eloquent as if he was out to slay the economic demon, but fails to answer why the blue corner notice was not turned red for all the years Modi has lived in the lap of luxury in London. So, the Congress too has a lot to answer for.
But Modi may be in trouble now. The full fury of law would soon be on him. He could be forced to return to India to answer grave charges of financial skullduggery. Thirty years ago as a student he might have escaped going to jail. But now he should be prepared for the worst. The NDA government is unlikely to persist with the kid-glove treatment he had received from the previous regime.
Meanwhile, Modi reminds us of Dharam Teja, an equally flamboyant tycoon in the 1960s who had won over Prime Minister Nehru and secured a sizeable amount from the government. Socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia had caused quite a storm, alleging that Teja had gifted Indira Gandhi a mink coat. Teja was eventually forced to return to India tried and convicted for fraud, and sentenced to several years in jail. Will history repeat itself in the case of Lalit Modi? Now for the second collateral victim of Lalit Modi’s We, as a nation, should be eternally grateful that Netaji gave India a direction to build a nationalist society going beyond region, gender and race. desperations. In all the noise over Raje’s affidavit to the British to allow Modi to stay on in London, an important point is missed. If she did sign that affidavit, as claimed by critics, she did so when she was not the Chief Minister. Norms and protocols out of power are different, though the Raje-Modi nexus, especially in her first term as CM, was the subject of much salacious gossip.
They veered apart sometime ago. Reportedly, the reason was that Raje was unwilling to play ball with the manipulative Modi. Speculation that the bit about Modi investing in her son’s company was leaked to take the focus away from Sushma Swaraj cannot be dismissed out of hand. The investment may well be legally okay but it is morally questionable. It is the sort of thing that Mayawati’s brother, Anand Kumar, had indulged in when after resigning as a clerk in the UP Irrigation Department he had floated a slew of companies and crooked businessmen were made to pay thousands in premium to acquire a ten rupee share in those companies.
Still, why Raje, who, unlike Swaraj, had everything going for her — namely, a royal pedigree, great wealth, an unquestioned leadership of her own state, etc. — would jeopardise her career supping with a controversial character is beyond comprehension. Maybe it is hubris. Who knows? municipal corporations of Delhi. However, the AAP spokesperson quoted in the report debunks the statement of the corporation. So pray what is the truth? Will some media people go deep into the facts and educate us rather than leaving us confused after TV channels drowned us with stinking oral brawls between the various stakeholders in the Delhi garbage? The recent controversy surrounding the association of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje with former IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi, currently facing serious charges of financial irregularities in India, have come to haunt the Bharatiya Janata Party’s central leadership. In fact, the story is less about Modi now and more about Swaraj and Raje, who, it appears, may have to quit their positions in a not too distant future. It is also a coincidence that both Swaraj and Raje are not perceived to be the most ardent supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had brought the BJP to power with his aggressive and tireless campaign last year.
It is because of this that certain sections of the BJP are interpreting the breakout of the scandal on the eve of the Bihar Assembly elections where the party’s chances of winning are 50-50 as a pre-emptive action by some supporters of the Prime Minister, to ensure that his probable critics in the event of a defeat are neutralised immediately. This is a clear case of over interpretation, since there is no threat to Modi’s leadership from any quarter and he continues to enjoy full authority within his party and his government. However, his total control over the government has perhaps inspired BJP patriarch L.K. Advani, currently in political wilderness, to have a dig at him by stating that he did not have the confidence that Emergency would never return to India as forces that can crush democracy were stronger.
Advani is a shrewd politician and thus has chosen the timing of his explosive interview to the Indian Express to re-assert himself and to send a strong message within the party that he was not irrelevant and still had a lot of politics in him. By sidelining him to a Marg Darshak Mandal, a body which lacks the approval of the BJP constitution, the leadership had made a huge mistake. He shall continue to send such signals till he gets some assurance from those who matter. He finds it as the right opportunity to also send feelers to forces within the party, which have been silent but are opposed to the working style of the present leadership to rally around him.
Coming back to Sushma Swaraj’s explanation that her action was propelled by humanitarian considerations, has not amused anyone. Since she has to go to New York for the International Yoga Day on Sunday, an impression is being given that the party was fully backing her. Ridiculous support statements that Swaraj is a nationalist by RSS functionaries have been shown on the electronic media, without trying to understand that nationalism has nothing to do with propriety and questionable conduct while dealing with a foreign government in one’s individual capacity and over and above the head of the ministry she heads. Her action is therefore indefensible and she has no option but to leave the Cabinet or be downsized in her own government, something which would prove even more embarrassing. Her exit could be similar to K. Natwar Singh’s sacking from the UPA government following the Volcker controversy.
The BJP, while defending Swaraj, has failed to take the fight to the Congress camp. There are some references to UPA’s soft line on Ottavio Quattrocchi, the Italian businessmen whose name figured in the Bofors scam, but there has been no mention of how Rajiv Gandhi had succeeded in obtaining clemency for his childhood friend Adil Shahryar from US President Ronald Reagan in June 1985 in what the media had described as a swap for allowing Warren Anderson of the Bhopal gas tragedy to get away. Shahryar was serving a prison sentence on various charges including arson and attempting to set a ship on fire.
ItisnotthefirsttimethatSwarajhasbeeninvolvedinacontroversy |of this magnitude. As the Delhi Chief Minister in October 1998, she was accused of having hobnobbed with Romesh Sharma, jailed subsequently on serious charges. Sharma was under investigation by the CBI and the Delhi police and the then joint commissioner of police, Amod Kanth had written a letter to the then Home Minister, L.K. Advani drawing his attention to the meeting. Swaraj denied the charge all along and even swore on the Holy Gita at the BJP headquarters. This time though, she is in a very serious political muddle and may not be able to save herself.
Vasundhara Raje too appears to be on her way out and is looking very vulnerable after her links with Lalit Modi have come to light. The financial dealings her son, Dushyant Singh has had with the former IPL boss have also raised many eyebrows and the media is already drawing a comparison between him and Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra. If charges against him and his mother are established, their political careers would be over and they could even face prosecution. It is evident that good days have ended for some in the BJP but if Swaraj and Raje also take some others down is to be seen. Between us.