When there is interest there would be conflict

The other day, former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav was on live television, speaking on Lokpal Bill which was introduced in the Lok Sabha. He spoke in length on how the CBI should not be under the proposed body to check corruption.

What struck me was not the speech of Lalu but the conflict of interest he has on the issue. CBI investigated the case against him for fodder scam, put him in jail and he had to resign from Bihar chief Ministership and pass on the baton to his wife Rabri Devi. Since then, he has been an ally of the Congress, initially as part of the government for five years and now as a silent admirer who is trying all tricks in the trade to be back in the UPA fold after being spurned by Congress in the last Assembly and subsequently Lok Sabha polls from Bihar.

Lalu was clearly the beneficiary of the government control on CBI as no one knows the fate of CBI cases in fodder scam. While other accused were arrested and convicted, Lalu continued to be a Railway Minister in UPA-I. Same is the case of Mulayam Singh Yadav against whom a case of DA is pending and CBI has gone extremely slow in pursuing the case. A grateful Mulayam extended outside support to the UPA even though Congress is threatening to take away his Muslim vote bank in Uttar Pradesh and is the principal rival in the state

I am not into the merits of whether CBI should come under the proposed Lokpal or not. Let the MPs decide that. I am referring to the conflict of interest which a Member of Parliament has to divulge in writing after becoming a member of the House. They have to specify in which companies they have an interest and the lobbies they belong to. Let the jurists judge whether the outrage of Lalu comes under conflict of interest or not, but clearly he should have been the last person to speak on the issue.

Something of a similar nature regarding “conflict of interest” happened in Chandigarh after the results of the Municipal Corporation elections were declared. The verdict saw a hung house with the BJP-SAD alliance getting 12 seats, Congress 11, BSP 2 and one seat being bagged by an Independent in the 26-member elected body. What is ironical and an affront to the local self government is the fact that 9 members in this tiny house would be nominated members – all of whom would participate in voting and electing the Mayor and deciding which party would have a control on the civic body.

And who is supposed to make the nomination? The UT Administrator and Punjab Governor Shivraj Patil who has been a Congressman all his life and still wants to get back to central politics after being removed as the Home Minister and sent to Chandigarh to cool his heels following the Mumbai terror attack three years ago. Nominations he did make but only after the election result and assessing how many of his nominees would vote for his party. So the election of the Chandigarh Mayor and who will have a control on the House is a foregone conclusion. Obviously, Congress would rule the House for the third term in a row and no one is putting his or her money on the BJP. There is no betting or speculation on an issue, the result of which is known to everyone in advance.

Clearly, the “nominee system” in the civic body needs an urgent review. Whichever party has its person in the Administrator’s chair would control the civic body. What is the meaning of election then and what is the point in conducting such a farce if you know the end result. It could be a BJP appointed Administrator one day, a Congress appointed person some other day or any other party for that matter. The system has reduced the democratic process to a farce in the city and this is what needs to be rectified.

There was another “conflict of interest” which unfolded in Haryana. This time, the role of the Vidhan Sabha Speaker was under scanner. Five members of the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) had defected to the Congress and helped the party form the government in 2009 after it managed to win only 40 seats in the House, six short of majority. Since then, the Speaker has been sitting on the issue and has not decided either for or against the petition of defection even though HJC President Kuldeep Bishnoi has made several representations.

Prime facie, the so called defection of HJC MLAs looks like a merger as more than two third members of the legislature party took a decision to this effect. The least the Speaker could have done was to decide the matter in favour of his party - Congress. He did not do even that and has put the party in a spot of bother. After Speaker’s procrastination for 24 months, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has issued a series of directions to him and given a time-frame to expedite the matter.

Everyone in the country knows that the Speaker in any House is either from the ruling party or its trusted ally. But at least, the Speaker is expected to wear a “cloak of neutrality”. He should not make the conflict of interest obvious, like the Haryana Speaker. Now when the judiciary has intervened, some Congress MLAs are attacking the directions of the court and not the indiscretion of the Speaker. This was a case where even if the Speaker had decided in favour of the five MLAs, no one would have questioned the move as the provisions of the anti-defection law do not prima facie apply here.

Punjab which goes to polls on January 30, also had conflict of interest to contend with, but it was more bureaucratic than political. A serving IAS official, D S Guru, sought premature retirement to contest the polls as an Akali Dal candidate from Bhadaur Assembly segment a few hours before his name was officially announced. While he was serving in the government, his alleged bipartisan role drew the ire of the opposition parties in the state. Guru was not alone. P S Gill, who retired as Director General of Police in September is contesting again on an Akali ticket from Moga. The Opposition had alleged that the police was biased during his tenure and now when Gill has actually got the Akali ticket, the allegation does not seem to be too far fetched.

No one is suggesting that the bureaucrats and police officials should not contest polls; they have every right to do so. But a provision of a cooling period of say two years after retirement could be made so that the officials who hobnob with the political masters of the day are not as blatant in favour or against a party when they are serving and getting a salary from the public exchequer. Obviously when there is a conflict of interest with officials, as was the case with Guru and Gill, their supposedly neutral stand gets diluted and they end up supporting the ruling party. (25.12.2011)

(The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer, Chandigarh)

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