(Edited Image Courtesy: delhi.gov.in)
Now that
#AAPWalksTheTalk twitter party is over, we can dish out some sobering thoughts
for Aam Adami Party (AAP) Supremo-cum-Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and
his fans.
The anti-bribery
jubilation also has an embedded message for a section of the mainstream media,
which projected Mr. Kejriwal's “live”
sacking of Food Minister Asim Ahmad Khan as “unprecedented” and refrained from
asking critical questions to CM.
First fact
first. Mr. Kejriwal is not the first Chief Minister/Prime Minister to sack a
minister. In March this year, tainted Tamil Nadu Agriculture Minister S.S
Krishnamoorthy was not only sacked from the Cabinet but also stripped of all
AIADMK party posts. He was later sent to judicial custody too.
(http://bit.ly/1QfU66s)
Certain CMs in
different States have sacked ministers of dubious reputation without flaunting
corruption charges as that might later be trashed by the courts. Even the
so-called “weakest” Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had goaded Union Environment Minister
Jayanthi Natarajan of the alleged ‘jayanthi tax’ fame resign from UPA Cabinet
in December 2013.
Way back in August 1948, PM Jawahar Lal
Nehru had dropped (sacked according to one version) India's first Finance
Minister R.K. Shanmukham Chetty for allegedly being soft towards certain
business houses in pursuing taxation cases against them. Later, Mr. Nehru kept
the finance portfolio with himself for about a month. (http://bit.ly/1jV9uem & http://bit.ly/1L5D61x )
If
these instances appear weak in theatrics which is Kejriwal’s trademark, let me
take him and AAP's teenyboppers to a unique case of Prime Minister sacking
Deputy Prime Minister on grave charges of misconduct: Late Mr. V.P. Singh had
sacked the No.2 man, Late Chaudhary Devi Lal, in the National Front Government
in August 1990.
At that time, private TV news channels
had not cropped up. There was obviously no online social media. Mr. Singh had
to thus sack Mr.Lal through an official release. And yet Mr. Singh's sacking of
his Deputy PM was more credible and dramatic than Mr. Kejriwal's action.
PM had slapped three charges on Mr. Lal:
1) Quoting a forged letter in an interview with a weekly magazine. The letter
was allegedly written by Mr. Singh in November 1987 to the President of India
when he was a minister in Rajiv Gandhi Government, levelling charges against
the then cabinet colleagues. 2) In the interview, Mr. Lal made serious,
unsubstantiated allegations against his Cabinet colleagues. 3) He also made derogatory
remarks against PM in the interview.
In a letter
addressed to Mr. Lal on 1st August 1990, Mr. Singh stated: “For these acts of
yours, of violations of all cannons of collective responsibility of the
Cabinet, I have recommended to the President of India to drop you from the
Council of Ministers.”
Consider now the
second fact. In this case, Mr. Singh had given an opportunity to Mr. Lal to
defend himself on these charges through a letter dated 29th July 1990. Mr. Lal
failed to answer razor-sharp queries on the forged letter. Nor did he provide
evidence to substantiate allegations against other ministers.
Mr. Kejriwal, on
other hand, did not give an opportunity to Mr Khan to reply to the alleged case
of bribery, which is based on a recorded telephonic conversation. This is
evident from his initial reaction immmediately after a Press Conference. A daily
quoted Mr. Khan as saying: “I have not heard the recording and am in a state of
shock. The party said that till the inquiry is on, I should not be in office.”
The very next
day, Mr. Khan trashed Kejriwal's charges at a Press conference. He attributed
his sacking to AAP’s internal politics and an attempt to save some big gun
within the party. He reportedly said: “I am the sacrificial goat”. He also
resolved to expose the conspiracy against him in a few days.
In playing a taped conversation in which Mr.
Khan is allegedly seeking bribes at the Press Conference, Mr. Kejriwal not only
showed contempt for the Law but also rationalized media lynching of suspects.
It is here
pertinent to quote what the then Chairman of Law Commission Justice M.
Jagannadha Rao, stated in its 200th report captioned ‘Trial by Media: Free
Speech Vs. Fair Trial Under Criminal Procedure (Amendments to the Contempt of
Court Act, 1971)’ submitted in August 2006.
Mr. Rao
observed: “According to our law, a suspect/accused is entitled to a fair
procedure and is presumed to be innocent till proved guilty in a Court of law.
None can be allowed to prejudge or prejudice his case by the time it goes to
trial.”
If Mr. Khan
drags Kejriwal Government to the court and wins a defamation suit, would Mr.
Kejriwal resign as CM? Was this question raised in the feted Press conference?
Third, if Mr. Kejriwal
is sincere in battling corruption at top echelons of power, why has he not made
public all the files on corruption complaints in which some of his ministers
are suspects, the latest case being that of alleged nepotism towards a firm
owned by a kin of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia?
Any clean head
of a government would have no hesitation in suo moto disclosure of all files on
all commercial deals. After all, transparency is the key to prevention of
bribery.
Why has Mr. Kejriwal
left the post of anti corruption ombudsman, Lokayukta, vacant for several months?
Why has he dragged his feet over Jan Lokpal bill? Why has he not referred to
CBI several cases of irregularities that happened during the previous Congress
regime at Delhi? And what about the donations scam that rocked AAP on the eve
of Delhi Assembly elections?
Fourth, Kejriwal
deserves praise for outsmarting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in anti-corruption
theatrics. It remains to be seen whether Mr. Modi/BJP would accept Kejriwal’s
gauntlet and take decisive political steps in Lalitgate, VyapamGate, Rajasthan mining
scam, etc.
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