Coalition politics

The New Year has started with the usual sermons but things have changed. Often political parties get into trouble when they think they are invincible. Look at the events over the past six months as the Commonwealth Games 2010 mess unfolded before us and the 2G spectrum scam surfaced along with the soap opera of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) family.
In hard political terms the Congress had to think of life beyond the DMK. There are thousands of crores of rupees involved and former telecom minister A. Raja and his associates could not have been the only individuals to benefit. There is a strong possibility that the entire DMK family and many Congress leader could be involved. Lack of effective action will mould public opinion as elections are won and lost by public perception and not by smart legal arguments and verdicts that take a few decades to arrive.
Sadly the United Progressive Alliance-2 (UPA) government shows little inclination of dealing with the situation on an “emergency” basis. Clearly, the political think tank within the UPA and the Congress is aware of the crisis but unable to deal with it. In such a situation events overtake decisions and the party in power is always the loser.
Political punches and firing missiles at each other are a part of politics but we are treading on dangerous ground as the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) trade charges.
In this chaos, everyone in all three wings of governance will settle scores with each other and with the help of a free media more scams are most likely to surface. Those who are in authority or are involved will be exposed either today or tomorrow. Only those with minimal assets will escape attention.
The reality is that there are no innocents in the political arena and with absence of accountability no ordinance or law is going to resolve the issue of corruption. It is a matter of common sense that donations to political parties always go to those sitting at the top.
But coalition politics has a diffused power base. As a result, the number of “collection” points tend to multiply, as we have seen happening in the 2G scam. This complicates the issue. The concentration of illegal wealth in several spheres challenges political authority and ultimately leads to political chaos. Political parties who have sources for party funds small and big cannot act against them. This virus is spreading and destroying our institutions and credibility.
The 2G scam is an octopus with a hundred tentacles and no one can predict when some issue may erupt suddenly. Urgent issues cannot be dealt with diversionary tactics. If one examines the telecom policy from 2001 to 2007, it will be proved that both the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the UPA created conditions to raise funds. While both the alliances would claim that ministers who were involved in corruption were swiftly removed, this does not justify the delay or the corruption involved in the 2G scam.
Political action is necessary and all the licences issued by Mr Raja should be cancelled. Current telecom minister Kapil Sibal is the right choice as he has good legal acumen combined with integrity. But the political direction has to come from the “top”. This issue cannot be dealt with in a routine manner.
I still feel that a Supreme Court supervised probe is the best way to deal with the situation but the demand for a joint parliamentary committee will intensify.

NATIONAL HUMAN Rights Commission (NHRC) chairman and the former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan is under a cloud. The Kerala government has begun a vigilance inquiry against his son-in-law Sreenijin who is alleged to have acquired disproportionate assets when Mr Balakrishnan was the Chief Justice.
Union law minister M. Veerappa Moily has said there is no evidence of misuse of office by Mr Balakrishnan. Despite the statements of Mr Moily few would be sorry to see Mr Balakrishnan resign his post of NHRC chairman. With this case, the judiciary has come under increased scrutiny. The question that arises now is, was Mr Balakrishnan the only judge whose relatives benefited during his tenure?
Mumbai’s Adarsh Co-operative housing scam has shown how politicians and their relatives grabbed flats meant for families of Kargil martyrs. While Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan resigned, little action has been initiated on the issue. Is this the only building in the area which has flouted norms?
The order of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has led to resurfacing of the Bofors issue where the name of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrochi figures. The order came a day before a court hearing on the 25-year-old Bofors case. In its ruling, the ITAT had said that kickbacks of `61 crore were paid to the late Win Chaddha and Ottavio Quattrocchi in the Howitzer gun deal and that they are liable to pay tax in India on this “income”. The Opposition has latched onto the ITAT order to target the Congress and party chief Sonia Gandhi on the issue of corruption.

WE HAVE several Assembly elections due this year. In West Bengal, the Congress will do well in alliance with the Trinamul Congress. The Congress might win in Assam and Kerala and will have the edge in Punjab, but it can lose ground in Uttar Pradesh where Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party seem set to improve upon their last performances.

Arun Nehru is a former Union minister