Author: B S Arun
Publication: Deccan Herald
Date: October 9, 2011
URL: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/196562/2g-taint-upa-crisis-not.html
What transpires in the Supreme Court during
the week starting October 10 is critical for a battered UPA government and
a beleaguered Congress party in general, and under-stress Home Minister P
Chidambaram in particular.
For, the apex court will be dealing with the
application of former minister Subramanian Swamy seeking a CBI probe into
the role of the minister in the taint-ridden 2G spectrum allocation saga.
Events during the week may have a catastrophic
effect on the UPA government and Congress party. If the highest court in the
country upholds Swamy's application, it would not only see the ouster of Chidambaram
from the Union cabinet but also bring the probe to the door step of prime
minister Manmohan Singh and the prime minister's office (PMO). If the application
is dismissed, Chidambaram will be relieved. If the apex court sends the application
to the trial court, it may be seen as temporary relief but the case will go
on.
The demand for a probe against the home minister
comes at a time when the CBI is all set to register an FIR - most likely within
the next few weeks - against former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran of DMK
in the 2G case.
The role of ex- finance minister has been
brought to a climax, thanks to an unlikely source: reply to a RTI query. The
response, consisting an "Office Memorandum" -an 11-page chronology
of events sent from the finance ministry to PMO on March 25, 2011 - all but
suggests that Chidambaram-led finance ministry could have halted the scam
if he had insisted that spectrum allocation should be through auction, rather
than `first come first served' basis, which now-jailed telecom minister A
Raja followed.
The "OM" has laid bare several proposals/measures/decisions
of different ministries vis-à-vis 2G scam, some hitherto unavailable
to public - that the finance ministry was all through in favour of auction
and opposed to first-come-first-served policy; that a scheduled meeting of
all related departments on January 9, 2008 was mysteriously cancelled; a day
later Raja overruled finance ministry objections and gave away Letters of
Intent to 122 firms in hours and DoT netted Rs 1,658 crore(compared to Rs
1,02,497 crore earned in 3G auctions just three years later!); that Chidambaram's
ministry did not question Raja's action; instead Chidambaram wrote a 'secret
letter' to the PM on January 15, 2008 saying that spectrum allocation be treated
as a `closed chapter'; that he and Raja held meetings and the PM joined them
for a meeting on July 4, 2008 on 2G.
The 'OM' from the finance ministry - now headed
by Congress veteran and UPA trouble shooter Pranab Mukherjee - was sent just
over a month after Raja was arrested. It was also at a time when the Union
government was in the thick of an attack unleashed by the Opposition in Parliament.
Thus,the 'OM', whose very first page of the total 11 pages says that the "OM
was seen by the FM", implying that Mukherjee was aware of the contents,
has raised several questions.
The explosive document - obtained by BJP legal
cell's Vivek Garg and presented before SC by Swamy - did the expected. It
created a storm from which the UPA and its lead partner Congress are struggling
to come out unscathed. The note sent by Mukherjee's ministry and "seen"
by him, has not just created a rift between two senior most ministers of UPA
and put the PM on the back foot, it also threatens to destabilise the government.
The Congress was not bargaining for this tornado, after the government faced
a series of scams and misfires on issues such as demand for separate statehood
for Telangana, Anna Hazare fast and Baba Ramdev fiasco, besides exposing a
lack of foresight and decision-making in the absence of unwell party chief
Sonia Gandhi.
Was the 18-point note, which at many stages
seems to target Chidambaram, an attempt to `fix' the former FM? How could
Mukherjee - later in a patch-up exercise - distance himself from the document
which says he has `seen' it? If Mukherjee is right, whom is he blaming for
drawing inferences and what action has been taken against the culprit? Was
not the document, which contained inter-ministerial inputs, routed through
senior officials? What did Chidambaram mean when he said `he accepted Mukherjee's
statement.
According to former cabinet secretary T S
R Subramaniam, "It is a serious note prepared by senior-most bureaucrats
over an 11-day period andseen by the finance minister."
Authority deficit
The entire episode also exposes the prime
minister's authority deficit. Except for meeting Mukherjee in New York and
Chidambaram in New Delhi, he did nothing to douse the fire. It was left to
a recuperating Sonia Gandhi to broker a truce between the two warring ministers.
Thanks to the 'OM', perhaps for the first
time in his career Chidambaram - who is also facing a court case challenging
his election - is bracing against a question mark over his future. He may
not be left with many friends in the party but he has the backing of Sonia
and PM. Importantly, he is seen as the last barrier before the PM. Mukherjee,
an all-weather politician, has not endeared himself to PM or Sonia through
this episode. Notwithstanding the outcome of the 2G court case, his carefully
cultivated image has taken a big hit.
Some legal luminaries say the home minister
cannot be accused of criminal culpability through the 'OM'. The CBI has strongly
defended him. There is nothing to establish collusion between him and Raja.
Was his merely a case of a negligent policy maker?
While the document has left UPA emotionally exhausted, the BJP is relentless
in its onslaught. Will the UPA withstand the offensive in the coming weeks?
Next week's court decision may hold the answer.
