A ‘scam-a-day’ UPA chugs on

Whatever little credit or face-saving the Congress may hope to scrape from a projected victory in Karnataka has been more than negated by yet another scam — this time from Rail Bhawan — further damaging its already battered image.

The latest developments began with Union Law Minister and an old Nehru-Gandhi family faithful, Ashwani Kumar getting entangled in the messy affair of tampering with the Central Bureau of Investigation’s Coalgate report.

A week later, the Rail Minister, Pawan Kumar Bansal, a fellow Punjabi and yet another confidante of the top Congress family, is caught in a bigger scam.

The corruption charge against Bansal, even though involving his nephew Vijay Singla, is huge enough to make petty scamsters gape in awe and admiration, and hapless tax-payers like you and me gasp in horror. For the first time, the nation has learnt that the post of a Member in the Railway Board costs as much as Rs 10 crore. Singla was apparently caught accepting bribe money of Rs 90 lakh as part of a deal to appoint someone who was already Member (Staff) to the more lucrative Member (Electrical) post.

Bansal has made the laughable excuse of having no “business” or financial dealings with a nephew, whose frequent presence in the Railway Ministry has, however, been established beyond any doubt.

Is the nation full of gullible millions anyway when it comes to politicians and their tall talk, expected to believe that Bansal was playing Agony Uncle to Singla for all his non-financial woes, and that too in the premises of his Ministry? Details are also now emerging of how the fortunes of a company owned by Bansal’s family — including his wife and sons — have soared in the last few years. Incidentally, Bansal was a UPA minister all through this period!

Railgate and Coalgate

Then, there is the Ashwani Kumar saga. The CBI has made startling disclosures on the role of the Law Ministry as well as the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in seeking for and meddling with the draft of the status report of its investigation into the coal scam. In a nine-page affidavit filed before the Supreme Court on Monday, CBI chief Ranjit Sinha has said that Ashwani Kumar, his officers and the PMO did make changes to the report.

Well, we had always feared and suspected that this is the way our governments and their so-called independent investigating arms have always functioned. Now, we know for sure.

These allegations and disclosures, connected to the irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks and a Railway Board Member’s post being available for a stiff fee, are shocking enough. But what is despicable and disgusting is the Congress High Command’s response.

Apart from going into a huddle of meetings of core groups, the party has done little to take exemplary action against two of its senior ministers.

Of course, not counting one definite step it has taken — to increase the number of Congress spokespersons. So, we can hear more sophistry and arguments, as those advanced by Information Minister, Manish Tewari, that the laws of the land and the premise of one being innocent till proved guilty hold good for Union Ministers too! Indeed, if found guilty, they deserve much worse than just being shorn of their expansive bungalows in Lutyen’s Delhi.

The Opposition, on its part, has predictably launched an onslaught and demanded the resignation or removal of the two ministers.

The Samajwadi Party, which is propping up the UPA Government, has come down heavily on it. Its senior leader Ram Gopal Yadav has bitterly complained about the double standards the UPA government applies when it comes to investigating charges against its own ministers and politicians belonging to other parties!

The implicit suggestion, that it would be okay if the government allowed all corruption charges to fall through irrespective of the party label the accused wears, would be comic, if only it wasn’t so painfully tragic.

Even the BJP’s taunts on the UPA being a scam-a-day government, a government of brokers and traders, and so on ring hollow, coming as they do on the eve of the Karnataka Assembly poll results.

The BJP is set to lose there because of the same inability or unwillingness, if not nexus, of the party’s central leadership vis-à-vis corruption in the only southern State it had in its kitty.

On the other hand, we have leaders like the RJD’s and former Rail Minister, Lalu Prasad, giving a clean chit of imandari (honesty) to Bansal!

Coming to the core of the entire corruption debate, despite all the taint and scams, the Congress-led ruling alliance is likely to chug along merrily to complete its five-year term. That is because the principal Opposition party, the BJP, is not ready to face elections yet, thanks to its own internal squabbles and unresolved leadership issues.

A brazen government

The SP chief Mulayam Singh and his son Akhilesh Yadav continue to fire salvos about impending early Lok Sabha polls, but don’t go beyond that. Mulayam is afraid that if he pulls the plug, his bête noir Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party will be only too willing to bail out the UPA.

The Left parties, too, would like some more time to pass for West Bengal’s electorate — already disillusioned by the Saradha chit fund scam — to get even more disenchanted with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress regime.

That explains why the UPA/Congress spin doctors are able to come before the media and claim brazenly that the present Government will complete its full term, secure in the knowledge that nobody is ready to rock this battered and discredited boat.

Meanwhile we, the voters, will be forced to watch from the sidelines, horrified and helpless, our netas merrily sucking out of the economy the taxes that we pay.

The money that is supposed to go to the hopeless, voiceless and economically disadvantaged… but which ultimately ends up in some black hole.

One crucial question which begs an answer is this: If some person can put up Rs 10 crore to get a particular post on the Railway Board, with a finite term of office, what is the rate of return he would be expecting from this investment?

The answer is mind-boggling. It would be an inspiration for all the crooks in the rest of the country to up their rates for posts as varied as that of a constable, a government school teacher, a Tehsildar, a Collector, a Secretary to this ministry or that…

Responses to rasheeda.bhagat@thehindu.co.in

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