Season of corruption scandals B S Arun

The Congress party has never been as nervous after the Bofors scandal hit the nation in the late 1980s. The Rs 64-crore payoff that brought the dirt at the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s doorsteps, handed over an electoral defeat to the Congress in the 1989 elections.

Over 20 years later, the Congress finds itself in a near-similar shaky situation. There may be no threat of Congress losing its government but in the season of scams, the image of the party and that of the United Progressive Alliance government that it heads, has taken a severe beating.

The Commonwealth Games scam - not to speak of the tardy preparation bringing to question the very efficiency of the UPA government and the Congress-ruled Delhi state government - followed by the scam of the Adarsh Housing Society, supposedly meant for families of the Kargil war victims, and the telecom scam have unnerved the government, to put it mildly.

True, the party and the government have taken some action. Two heads have already rolled – A Raja and Ashok Chavan were made to step down as telecom minister and Maharashtra chief minister respectively, for presiding over the scandals.

But then such is the fate of the party that even after these two actions, the crescendo by the Opposition against the government, holding it responsible, has never stopped. Worse, the government seems clueless over what it should do and how to get out of the mess.

SC blow

Even while the Congress was undecided how to face the growing call by the Opposition for a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the scams, came some observations by the country’s top court.

The Supreme Court delivered perhaps the worst blow by passing adverse remarks against prime minister Manmohan Singh for his silence in not responding to a letter by former MP Subramanian Swamy seeking prosecution of the tainted Raja.

The apex court passing comments on the working of the PM has never happened in recent memory. This has come as a shocker for an already bruised Congress, not knowing where to hide.

The blow was particularly nasty because it has hit the very person that Congress presents to the nation as its cleanest. Here’s what the 2009 Congress manifesto said about Singh: “In Manmohan Singh, we have a prime minister with unique qualifications, unparalleled experience, impeccable reputation and unquestionable integrity. His wisdom, knowledge and expertise is needed now more than ever, as the country faces challenges”.

Not that after Bofors there were no scams – the initial years of the minority Congress government of P V Narasimha Rao saw quite a few of them – stocks scam, sugar scam, hawala scam and telecom scam, which were followed by the Tehelka and coffin scams during the BJP regime. But both the governments weathered the storm although they did not come out unscathed.

The telecom scam – allocation of 2G spectrum which supposedly cost the government a whopping Rs 1.76 lakh crore – is not just about the delay in Raja’s resignation but about the collective failure of the government to take action, to prevent the scandal.

The buck is stopping at the prime minister because the PMO, like the finance and law ministries and the cabinet secretariat, was aware of what was going on. Yet, they did little to stop Raja. The act of omission is proving to be too costly for the UPA government.

As the 2G scam threatens to become as potent a weapon to the Opposition as Bofors was, the inaction by the government has surprised many. Under Transaction of Business Rules set by the Cabinet Secretariat, any project worth over Rs 500 crore should go to the cabinet, more so if it involves more than one ministry.

The very fact that the PMO and other ministries kept sending letters to Raja points out that despite being in the know of things, these various bodies did not stop the telecom minister.

When Congress came back to power in 2009, Singh did not want Raja in the cabinet. However, the compulsion of coalition politics forced him not only to induct him but give him telecom ministry. The inflated importance that Congress gave to DMK has hurt the UPA badly.

Contrast ‘avatar’

The UPA II is suddenly proving to be a complete contrast to UPA I avatar. Despite all the trouble created by the Left parties, the UPA I provided a relatively scam-free government and its pro-people programmes saw it coming back to power.

The UPA II is not dependent on the support of the Left or the demanding regional satraps like Mulayam Singh Yadav or Lalu Prasad. Still, this dispensation is finding the going tough.

The initial euphoria of the UPA II after it returned to power in 2009, and the coalition’s promise of delivering a “people’s government” by fast tracking development and expanding the social security net, is slowing evaporating as scam clouds loom dark and large.

There may not be any threat to the UPA II dispensation at the moment but Congress as an individual party will have little solace from some of the regional elections.

Of the five states facing Assembly elections – with polls already underway in Bihar – the Congress is likely to do well in two of the smaller states of Kerala and Assam.

It is likely to only very marginally improve on its tally of nine out of 243 seats in Bihar where the ruling JD (U)-BJP combine is expected to come back to power.

In West Bengal, the Congress will have to be satisfied with playing second fiddle to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, while in Tamil Nadu, the party scion wants to go it alone and not tie up with DMK (Congress provides the crucial support to the regional party in TN).

Thus, the Congress cannot expect any major boost from its individual show in these states (which send a total of 155 MPs to Lok Sabha). Still, the elections in these states cannot be taken as some sort of referendum on the issue of corruption as local issues dominate deciding the preference of the electorate.

Without waiting for the election results, the Congress has to do some major firefighting to undo the damage that the corruption charges have wreaked on its image.

Fed up, will UPA decide to call for fresh elections to the Lok Sabha? Highly unlikely. Not sure of future prospects, Congress may not take the bite and allies may not favour it either.

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