Devotees of Corruption!

When a successor to Rajnath Singh was searched for the post of BJP President, in 2009, the names of Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Venkaiah Naidu, Ananth Kumar and Manohar Parikkar were going round within the BJP. But their mother organization, the RSS picked up the unknown Nitin Gadkari, the principal argument in favour of him appeared to be that he was from Nagpur, where the RSS has its headquarters. That should have been the least of the qualifications. It displayed the BJP slavery to the RSS.

For a while, the BJP has been showing signs of going the way of the Communist Party of India – into a coma. Under Rajnath Singh, whose vision said the world was a district in Uttar Pradesh, the doctor was away. If Gadkari is not careful, he could be the last of the BJP Presidents. There may not be a BJP the way we know it. The RSS developed loathing for the work styles of others like Jaitley and Swaraj: for they didn’t appear ‘single-minded’ (in RSS parlance single-mindedness means knowing only Hindutva and nothing else). So the RSS chose a man they knew, never mind whether the rest of India know him or not.

Gadkari’s only political stints have been in the Maharashtra Legislative Council, a Rajya Sabha – like body in the state assembly. You don’t need to face people there. Consequently Gadkari has not so far contested elections. During his presidency of the Maharashtra BJP, the party didn’t win either. At least one news report after Gadkari became BJP President suggested he was interested in a Rajya Sabha ticket.

He is a part-time politician. The only thing global in Gadkari is his business interest in new and renewable energy, which is where money will be in the years ahead. He has business stakes in a bio-diesel pump, a sugar factory, an ethanol blending plant, a power generation unit, and a soyabean plant. Gadkari says he has spent only hours in New Delhi each time he was there in the past, never staying the night. Only that much acquaintance he had had with national politics.

In an uncharitable comment on Gadkari’s looks, a columnist called him ‘a walking advertisement for sloth’ that he does not generate respect. While politics is not about looks alone, the columnist said, ‘only a fit politician can speak of fitness and finesse to fellow Indians.’ The second comment seems to be logical in Gadkari’s case. As Gadkari dared to make an unrefined comment which any seasoned national political leader in his own party like Vajpayee or Advani would not have dared. Gadkari has said “PM ne DMK ko desh ko lootne ki puri azaadi di” (PM gave the DMK full freedom to loot the country)! What an atrocious comment?

In a sharp rejoinder Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari listed various scams during BJP-led NDA rule at the Centre and called the party as ‘devotees of corruption.’

In the infamous Tehelka scandal in 2001, the weekly magazine launched ‘Operation West End’, to expose the culture of bribery at the Ministery of Defence. It set up a bogus-London based company, and contacted MoD officials for selling thermal binoculars to the Government of India. Tehelka filmed BJP President Bangaru Laxman taking bribe for helping the bogus company in procuring government contracts. Laxman was seen in the tape, speaking about his proximity to PMO and assuring clinching of deals. During the process Tehelka also met Jaya Jaitley, the head of Samata Party, and a close aide of Defence Minister George Fernandez. When the scandal broke, there was an outcry and Fernandez resigned although he was not accused of taking bribe. Laxman also resigned but Jaya Jaitley accused Tehelka journalists as Pakistani agents and raised doubts over the authenticity of the tapes. The tapes were sent to UK for forensic examination and were confirmed as genuine. Tehelka showed several political figures, as well as top army brass, colluding to take bribes and approached 4 percent of orders totalling hundreds of crores in order to approve defence contracts. Fernandez was reinstated later. Part of the tapes showed the treasurer of his party talking about and accepting bribes of one crore and more from arms dealer ex-Naval officer Lt. Comdr Suresh Nanda, son of Ex-Naval Chief of Staff S.M.Nanda.

Initially the government, instead of acting on the evidence, accused Tehelka of fabricating allegations. However, five years later, in October 2006 (Under UPA rule) CBI filed chargesheets against George Fernandez, former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sushil Kumar, and others in Barak missile case, claiming that there was reasonable basis to suspect corruption and criminal conspiracy. In March 2008, Nandas were arrested. Fernandez was interrogated in May 2008.

At one point, the Samata Party national treasurer R.K.Jain was trying to convince the fictitious dealer West End about his prowess in swinging deals. He mentioned how in the first defence deal that he was involved in as party treasurer, Suresh Nanda of Crown Corporation had paid Samata Party Rs. One crore to swing the Rs.250-crore order for Armoured Recovery Vehicles in favour of a Slovakian company. At another point, Jain also said that he had received another Rs.One crore from Suresh Nanda to help swing the contract for an air-to-air and surface-to-surface missile system for the Indian Navy. Nanda was the Agent for the Israel Aircraft Industries which make Barak Missile.

The BJP-led government did not constitute a JPC or ordered a CBI inquiry into such a huge scandal involving the nation’s defence and went on to reinstate the tainted Minister. A judicial commission probing Tehelka expose cleared Defence Minister of any impropriety in defence deals, questioned by the opposition, even before the tapes were found genuine in UK.

Soon after Fernandez was reinstated as Defence Minister, the Tehelka exposed yet another scandal involving Defence Ministry. The affair centres on the report that the government paid vastly inflated sums for coffins for soldiers killed during Kargil war. Not only were the 500 aluminium coffins overpriced, but the US-based supplier failed to meet Indian specifications.  Soldiers killed fighting separatists in Kargil, were regarded as martyrs by many Indians and opposition parties shouted down the government with cries of coffin thieves. "Nobody will forgive those involved for having purchased coffins that had to be subsequently rejected," said the opposition.

Fernandes only returned as Defence Minister in October after being forced out of office over the scandal of weapons purchases. He refused to resign, saying he has asked the US company for a refund. More than 400 Indian soldiers were killed in the 1999 conflict which began when militants infiltrated the Kargil sector of Kashmir from Pakistan. A report in The Times of India newspaper said the Comptroller and Auditor General found that the government had paid an American company $2,500 for each of the 500 coffins. But five years earlier, it had only paid $172 per coffin. Moreover, many of the coffins were never used, being rejected as too heavy. "What is really shocking is that the coffins of the martyrs were bought at an exorbitant price," said the chief whip of the opposition Congress Party, Pryaranjan Dasmunshi. "They have no right to stay in office, until the Prime Minister explains to the house." For the media, the anger of opposition parties was a genuine reflection of public feeling: "The mood of the parliamentarians amply reflected the shock and anger faced by each and every Indian on these sordid revelations." This was yet another sordid record of the BJP’s brand of nationalism and patriotism.

Shortly after the NDA came to power in '98, the BJP was quick to prove it was not "a party with a difference". By '02, it was evident that most petrol pump, LPG and kerosene allotments during the NDA regime had favoured BJP functionaries, Sangh activists and selected governors and bureaucrats. Then Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee was forced to cancel all 3,158 allotments, with effect from January 2000. However, the SC quashed the order. In 2005, an apex court-appointed panel recommended that 296 of the 409 allotments be cancelled.

The huge scandal of the BJP-led government was in telecom sector, about which now they are making hue and cry.

By facilitating the migration of private telecom operators from a regime of licence fee payment to one of revenue sharing, overlooking the legal and ethical hazards involved, the Vajpayee Government set a new standard of impropriety for a caretaker administration in 1999. The best defence that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government had to offer for the telecom policy directives that were spelt out on July 6 was that they were in essence determined well before the Government was reduced to a caretaker capacity. In fact, it was authoritatively stated that the details of the policy were agreed at a meeting of the Union Cabinet on March 26, when the ADMK was also a coalition partner.

The plea slipped up on one small detail: the Union Cabinet on March 26 considered the report of the Group on Telecom (GoT) which had been constituted previous year to propose the broad directions of policy. But the GoT specifically ruled out the policy option that the Government had rushed to embrace. And this was the point central to controversies - the migration of private telecom operators from a regime of licence fee payment to revenue sharing. In overhauling the rules of commercial participation after contracts have long been executed, this effectively rewards the private telecom operators for a pattern of persistent default on contractual obligations.

The legal and ethical hazards were very apparent to the GoT, on account of which it advocated a cautious approach: "As and when the circles presently occupied by existing licensees were vacated either by expiry of the existing period, surrender, through mutual consent or otherwise, new licensees should be appointed under the new policy regime. This would enable a New Telecom Policy to be formulated, notified and implemented without litigation or controversy, and over a period of time the entire country could be covered under the new policy regime."

THE reasons for the caution were clear. As the Delhi Science Forum (DSF) has pointed out in its public interest petition filed in the Delhi High Court, contracts for private telecom operators were awarded exclusively on the criterion of licence fee bids in the case of cellular services, and with predominant weightage to this criterion in the case of basic telephony. Invariably, it was the highest bidder who was awarded the contract. Infamously, the highest bidder in most circles - acting collusively with the then Minister for Communications Sukh Ram - was allowed without penalty to renege on all it promised.

The Government then adopted a curious attitude - it would selectively accept the highest bids, but would not consider itself obliged to assess the feasibility or internal consistency of the proposals it received. Commercial realism was discouraged by this process, with all the rewards being reserved for those who made the most extravagant promises. A few bailouts, it needed to be added, were also ensured for those who went over the limits of prudence.

The bailout being fashioned for the operators was, by any perspective, repugnant to the integrity of the original process of commercial bidding. Many who lost out in that round could consider themselves unfairly deprived, for the simple sin of using commercially realistic parameters in formulating their bids. As Attorney-General Soli Sorabjee pointed out in an opinion rendered on January 6, a shift from licence fees to revenue sharing for existing licensees "would be vulnerable to a challenge from unsuccessful bidders". The grounds they could use would be simple: "Had they known that departures from the licence agreements would be subsequently permitted, they would have given bids on different calculations and perhaps succeeded in obtaining licences." Legally and logically, this seemed to be the obverse of affirming that if realism rather than fantasy had been the basis of the original award of tenders, then changes in contractual conditions today would not have become a matter of compulsion.

This was one among many asymmetries that Jagmohan, as Minister for Communications, drew attention to in a detailed note drafted in May. Confronting the private operators' demand that a revision of their contractual terms was called for, Jagmohan asked how far it was "legally, constitutionally, financially, commercially and morally justifiable to sign legal agreements, after giving competitive bids, and then not to observe contractual obligations".

If the operators were incurring losses as they claimed, then Jagmohan suggested, the option before them was very simple - to surrender their licences. It did not make commercial sense for operators to continue in a business simply to have their losses "multiplied". At the same time, Jagmohan also sought to envision the situation that may have evolved had the private operators been more successful than anticipated in their venture: "If the licensees had made more profits than originally calculated, would they have come forward to share the extra gains with the licensors?"

Clearly, these were inconvenient questions for both the private operators and their official patrons. Jagmohan was shifted out from the Ministry of Communications in June, a bizarre expression of skewed priorities by a caretaker government in a war-like situation. And in a public avowal of undue interest, Vajpayee - a Prime Minister rallying the nation to confront an external aggression - found the time and the inclination to take the portfolio under his direct charge. After Pramod Mahajan, Sushma Swaraj and Jagmohan, the first among equals had to take up the mantle himself. Having shuffled the portfolio among three trusted aides without getting any closer to meeting his objective, Vajpayee was compelled in just over a year, to take direct charge.

The Attorney-General undoubtedly received the right cue from this personal affirmation of commitment by the Prime Minister. In a fresh opinion, sought by Jagmohan but rendered to Vajpayee, he proved himself completely acquiescent to political directives. Since his opinion of January, the only substantive change in ground realities had been the Union Cabinet decision of March 26, a mere expression of intent that the public interest demanded that the telecom policy parameters be uniform across the country.

The Ministry of Communications note, presented to the Union Cabinet on July 6, went substantially by assurance to operators and sanctioned the migration of existing licensees to a regime of revenue sharing. Apart from the law of contracts applied asymmetrically over time, this also raised questions about the uniform treatment of unequals, an approach which only reinforces and perpetuates existing disparities.

What was the cause of such pressing urgency, asked the Delhi High Court, while hearing a public interest petition filed by the DSF? What would have been lost if two months had been allowed to elapse before the policy directives were framed? Appearing for the Government, the Attorney-General was categorical in his affirmations. Large sums of money were involved for the telecom operators, as also for the Government. Further delay would have led to a mounting sense of uncertainty and possible bankruptcy and closure for many of the operators. Public interest was also involved in the security of large funds invested in the telecom firms by various financial institutions. These circumstances, said Soli Sorabjee, compelled the Government to act without further delay.

In doing so, the Vajpayee Government set a new standard of impropriety for a caretaker administration and underlined public cynicism about those in authority. Rather than iron out the irrationalities of the policy regime it inherited, it has chosen to compound them. The party that had little hesitation in aligning itself with Sukh Ram, the architect of the policy disaster, then provided definitive affirmation of its intent to follow his example.

Last month (October 2010) former Minister A.Raja alleged that the NDA government distributed for free 250 MHz of spectrum far in excess 4.4 MHz to many leading operators violating all norms. The scam cost the country upto Rs.1.60 lakh crore.

Is it because of all these policy manipulations and scam in which the principal motivating factor was none other than the Prime Minister himself, that the BJP is now reluctant to take the offer of the Congress for a JPC probe into the issue right from 1999? That must be.

Now, the BJP, and more so, Gadkari are on the dock in Karnataka affair. Gadkari had his way in installing the Chief Minister of his choice, Arjun Munda, in Jharkhand, much to the distress of Yashwant Sinha and his backers like L.K.Advani. But that success story in the matter of exercising his authority as the BJP President has not been replicated in the B.S.Yeddyurappa case in Karnataka. Evidently, appointment is easier than eviction in the BJP. The BJP was widely reported to have captured power in the southern state only by using the money power (of infamous Reddy Brothers thro’ illegal mining). It was said voters were paid between Rs.1,500 and Rs.2,500 for each voter. Soon after the BJP government was formed charges of ‘mining’ money by Reddy Brothers and Co., erupted but the BJP leadership could not get the Reddy Brothers out of the Ministry and saved its government again using money power – bribing each MLA upto Rs.25 crore. However the ‘stability’ could not last long and ‘land scam’ to the value of Rs.8,000 crore knocked on the doors of the Chief Minister himself. Caught unawares the BJP leadership is in a quandary unable to respond to the countrywide outcry to remove Yeddyurappa, and bowed before money power in retaining him in power.

By all account Manish Tewari’s categorization of the BJP as “devotee of corruption” is correct and they can be suggested to have Jayalalitha as their prisiding deity!

(28-11-10)