VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
Corruption has always caught the
eyeballs and has the potential to change political fortunes. Remember the
Bofors saga which proved to be the nemesis of the mighty Rajiv Gandhi in 1989.
What has changed in the last 23
years is that corruption has become the new buzzword in political discourse, a
benchmark by which people judge their leaders. Be it national politics in New
Delhi or the regional politics of Haryana, Punjab ,
Himachal Pradesh or other states, “corruption politics” has been setting the
agenda of the rival political parties. In the run-up to the 2014 general
elections, corruption undoubtedly would remain the single biggest issue for the
political parties.
One can understand corruption
becoming the deciding factor in polls. But what amuses me most is that even
those accused of serious graft, charge their opponents of being corrupt without
the slightest sense that it could boomerang on them.
Take for instance “corruption politics”
in Haryana. While former chief minister and INLD leader Om Prakash Chautala
faces a series of corruption cases in various stages of investigation and
trial, he never desists from calling his rival in state politics – Bhupinder
Singh Hooda as corrupt. Even though there could be a hint of irregularities,
Hooda simply laughs away the charges pointing out to the track record of the
accuser. Ask Chautala about the corruption cases against him and prompt comes
the reply. The CBI is under the central (read Congress) government and it is
out to fix its opponents.
Himachal Pradesh is no different.
Former chief minister Virbhadra Singh is facing trial under the Prevention of
Corruption Act in the CD case. He had to resign from the Manmohan Singh Cabinet
after opposition hue and cry over the issue. Charges have been framed and the
trial is on. Nevertheless, the five-time chief minister does not desist from
charging his opponent Prem Kumar Dhumal and the BJP of indulging in corruption.
Of course, the Himachal leader wants the case to be transferred to the CBI
believing that till the time the UPA is in power, he could have his say in the
investigations. No wonder, he keeps blaming the state government for
victimisation insisting that the case is bogus as the investigations was
carried out by the state police.
In Punjab ,
Captain Amarinder Singh never gets tired of accusing the Akali Dal leaders of
corruption and nepotism. Ironically, he himself is facing graft charges and has
to run from one court to the other quite often as the trial and legal
proceedings take ages. Talk to the Captain about the charges and he will
promptly say that this was part of victimization launched by the Akalis when
they came to power in Punjab in 2007. Agreed that the
Akalis lodged cases against him, days after coming to power in March 2007 but
Amarinder did the same thing against the Badals – chief minister Parkash Singh
Badal and his son and Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal when he was the chief
minister of the state in 2003. Interestingly, the Punjab Vigilance Bureau was
used by both the Captain and the Badals against each other. While the Badals
have been acquitted from the graft charges, the case against the Captain is
still under trial.
Isn’t there a striking similarity
in some of the assertions made by leaders accused of corruption? Those in the
opposition and charged of corruption accuse those in power of misusing the
authority. It’s like saying my corruption is smaller than yours. It’s like
taking the people for granted and laughing away the corruption charges,
insisting all the time that it is merely a frame-up.
“Poor” Madhu Koda, the former
chief minister of Jharkhand, is perhaps the only politician who has served time
in jail for over three years in a series of corruption cases. An independent MLA, Koda became the chief
minister with Congress support and things went wrong and he found himself on
the wrong side of law – something rare for a politician to spend so much time
in jail on graft charges. Koda can’t even accuse anyone of “political
victimization” as he doesn’t belong to any party and has been practically
abandoned by the Congress – a party which was sympathetic to him and was
instrumental in installing him on the post of chief minister.
Former Karnataka chief minister
BS Yeddyurappa remained in Bangalore's central prison in connection with the
land de-notification cases only for a brief period and so did former Bihar
chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav in the infamous fodder scam. As expected, both
of them blamed their political rivals and absolved themselves of all
responsibility and never accepted that they did anything wrong.
The case of Jagan Mohan Reddy,
son of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, is all the
more interesting. Congress never admitted that YSR could ever do any wrong even
as it accuses his son of wrongdoing. No one would believe that Jagan Mohan was
capable of making crores of so called unaccounted money and ownership of
several companies with varied interest without the backing of his father. Only
the Congress is naïve enough to believe that and perpetuate the myth. CBI cases
were lodged against Jagan only when he left the Congress to form his own party
and not earlier, clearly suggesting that Congress is tolerant to corruption but
not to its political opponents.
The UPA government too is doing
something similar –closing its eyes to the obvious. It cannot see what is
visible to almost everyone. In the Coalgate, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has
absolved himself of all responsibility even though he was the minister
in-charge for most of the time when the alleged scandal took place. If acts of
omission and commission take place under the Head of Department and the
government suffers losses, the HoD is held accountable. Causing loss to the
state exchequer through negligence itself is considered enough for being hauled
up and face the legal consequences. But
in Coalgate, when the heat raged on, companies and individuals began to be
questioned. Here is a classic case where you don’t question the policy which
led to the scam but haul up the second rung players who merely benefited from
the rules and system which you created.
It was a similar approach in the
2G scam. Those who farmed the policy of spectrum allocation and overlooked what
was happening right under their nose did not figure in the list of those
arrested and prosecuted. Those companies and the CEOs who gave bribe money and
benefited have been proclaimed guilty not those who created the environment
congenial for corruption by changes in the spectrum allocation policy. (September 10, 2012)
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