The Hindu : Money matters

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 23, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Money matters

Winning an election is a sure way of making those fast and vast quantities of bucks which can keep generations living in style. Neena Vyas reports.

A BUSE OF political power to cover corruption has become part of the Indian political scene. Be it the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party, or any of the smaller but powerful regional political formations, it seems it is money, more money and still more money that oils their party machines and keeps their leaders enthusiastic about serving the country.

The fight for party ticket during elections, and the battle for ministerial berths afterwards, does not have much to do with candidates wanting to serve the people, or their doing good for the nation.

It has a lot to do with money. Winning an election — be it the municipality, the State Assembly or Parliament — is a sure way of making those fast and vast quantities of bucks which can keep generations living in style.

With many honourable exceptions, the fact is that a large number of party leaders, big and small, often during the course of a few years in office, acquire assets many times more in value than the total legitimate income earned by them and several previous generations of their families. But who is asking them to explain?

Politicians have routinely used their power and influence to get industrialists to give lucrative dealerships to their sons, daughters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law.

And no one squeaks, because other handouts like petrol pumps and cooking gas agencies have been used by successive governments as largesse to be distributed among poor cousins, party workers and sympathisers, and even to a few political opponents.

Abuse of power by politicians to beget wealth may be in a class by itself, but by no means is the political class the only segment of society to pursue single-mindedly the goal of getting wealthier by any means. Tax laws are broken routinely without any twinge of conscience. The Haji Mastans and Romesh Sharmas have been on the guest list of those in power, and those who make a splash in the newspapers because they allegedly cheated on tax, find themselves adorning VVIP enclosures at public functions, rubbing shoulders with the top political elite.

Just two days after Dilip Singh Judev was "caught'' on a videotape, taking money allegedly from a man representing an Australian firm, the Deputy Prime Minister said that he was the Bharatiya Janata Party's "star campaigner" in Chhattisgarh. And if the BJP is to be believed, Mr. Judev is now drawing a better and bigger response from the people than before the tape was telecast.

The Prime Minister was quick to accept Mr. Judev's resignation from the Council of Ministers. After all, his is a government with a difference. But less than a day after ordering a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the affair, he gave him a clean chit at public meetings.

If the Congress was wrong in indicting Mr. Judev before the probe was complete, the BJP, especially the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, made matters worse by giving the verdict — he is honest — even before the probe earnestly started.

When the Bofors scandal broke out, commissions made by some were described euphemistically as "winding up costs", for the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, had announced that no commission had been taken or given in the defence deal. When the Tehelka exposé caught on camera the then BJP president, Bangaru Laxman, taking Rs. one lakh across the table, it was dismissed as of no consequence since it was a "donation" to the party, although party leaders themselves admit that a person offering a donation is directed to go to the party office and hand it over to the treasurer.

Facts stare the public in the face. The police declared that crores of rupees stuffed in gunny bags and suitcases were found at the residence of the former Congress Minister, Sukh Ram. That story is more than seven years old. The Bofors scandal is dragging on after more than 13 years.

What happened to the Unit Trust of India scandal affecting crores of investors? The Finance Minister just dipped into the money collected from taxpayers to pay out dividends to unit holders against all norms of prudence. No one has heard of what happened to the investigation into the bad loans given by the Trust, possibly on political recommendations. Mr. Laxman, who admitted that he took the cash, was sidelined by the party, but there has been no prosecution, no case registered.

And what about the Jain hawala scandal involving top politicians of several parties? Well, after the courts ordered the CBI to investigate the matter independently, the judiciary opined that the primary evidence, the Jain diaries, were not evidence admissible in court. The case was dropped. It suited both the Congress and the BJP.

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