DELHI: Terming action against telecom companies by the UPA government on 2G spectrum allocation a “smokescreen” to let off corporates, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Thursday accused the Congress of being “steeped in corrupt nexus with big business.”
Suggesting that in the 2G spectrum affair, not only the Minister and the guilty officials but also the corporates which suborned and bribed them be brought to book and punished, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said the manner in which Communications Minister Kapil Sibal was going about making statements raised suspicion that only some token action would be taken.
“What is the need for an internal enquiry committee when already notice has been issued to 85 companies asking why their licences should not be cancelled? Why is the Minister not categorical about declaring that licences of all those companies that have adopted illegal means will be cancelled? Why is the Minister stating that auction of spectrum may not be the best way forward? In all this, we are seeing the now familiar pattern — a smokescreen to see that the main culprits, i.e. corporates, are let off the hook,” Mr. Karat commented editorially in the latest edition of the party organ, People's Democracy.
Referring to recent eruption of a series of corruption scandals against the Congress-led government, he said it would be a mistake to view these as just a manifestation of the venality of certain politicians, or of some corporates or the other. “The rot goes much deeper and it is systemic. Corruption in high places is not a new phenomenon but has been growing since the 1990s when liberalisation took off.”
“The nexus of big business-politicians-bureaucrats emerges as a by-product of the neo-liberal regime. The first wave of corruption scandals came during the period of the Narasimha Rao government … The Congress party is steeped in this corrupt nexus with big business … the BJP did not have a much of a different record when it was in power …,” the editorial said.
For the bourgeoisie, it is convenient to portray corruption as a breach of ethical values and treat it as a moral question. Detaching the evil from its systemic roots is to camouflage the fact that crony capitalism and corruption are the twin handmaidens of the neo-liberal order.
The cosy relationship between some editors and journalists and the agents of big business may have come as a shock to the middle class but it has come as no surprise for the Left, which is systematically vilified by the corporate media, the bulk of which is itself part of the corporate structure that wilfully ignores how a government committed to the neo-liberal order is functioning.
“The recent revelations have confirmed the hard truth. The Prime Minister presides over a Cabinet in which some are advocates of certain business interests and some are businessmen themselves. A few are lawyers who have represented the very corporates with whom they have to deal with in the portfolios they look after. It is illegal money generated by the corrupt big business-politician-bureaucrat nexus that is flowing into the political system and perverting politics and democracy. There is a direct link between this corruption and the illegal money which is being used on a large-scale in elections. Fighting corruption, therefore, requires attacking the root of this evil which is the corrupt nexus,” the editorial said, adding the fight against corruption and the neo-liberal policies that spawned it in a big way were interlinked
