NSA Ajit Doval is said to be backing CBI director Alok Verma, while special director Rakesh Asthana has the support of P.K. Misra, a top PMO official.
New Delhi: The current battle between the two top officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation has its roots in the Prime Minister’s Office, and the top echelons of the government believe that only PM Narendra Modi’s intervention can bring an end to this turf war.
Two groups in the PMO, both jostling for supremacy in South Block, are quietly but firmly supporting the two officers — CBI director Alok Verma, a 1979-batch AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territories)-cadre IPS officer, and the agency’s special director Rakesh Asthana, a 1984-batch IPS officer of the Gujarat cadre.
While National Security Adviser Ajit Doval is said to be backing Verma, Asthana has the support of retired Gujarat cadre IAS officer P.K. Misra, currently additional principal secretary to PM Narendra Modi.
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ThePrint spoke to several senior government functionaries to piece together what is turning out to be a never-ending saga of palace intrigue and a game of oneupmanship that is being played out in the backyard of India’s most powerful person — Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
‘Modi’s blue-eyed boy’
Asthana, who has been close to Modi — he served as police commissioner of Vadodara and Surat — as well as BJP chief Amit Shah, was “almost final” as the next CBI chief once Verma completed his two-year fixed tenure in January 2019, sources said.
“While a strong lobby is supporting him, an equally strong lobby within the PMO believes his continuation has become untenable. In fact, the second group strongly believes he shouldn’t have been brought into the CBI in the first place due to integrity issues,” said a government functionary.
“What we are witnessing now is only a coming-out-in-the-open of what has been so far a close-door tussle for supremacy within the PMO,” the source added.
The source also acknowledged that the controversy has only given credence to the claims by some Modi government critics that the PMO wanted to control the CBI through handpicked officers such as Asthana.
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The first time this theory was extended was when the Modi government made Asthana acting CBI director after the retirement of previous chief Anil Sinha in December 2016. He held the post for a few months until Verma took over.
The influx of IPS officers who either belong to the Gujarat cadre or had investigated the Gujarat riots of 2002 — Y.C. Modi, now the chief of National Investigation Agency; A.K. Sharma, a 1987 batch Gujarat cadre officer, who found mention in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case; Praveen Sinha, a 1988 batch Gujarat cadre officer who is currently additional director of CBI; Raghavendra Vatsa, a 2005 batch Gujarat cadre who is posted as SP, ACB, Lucknow; and Gagandeep Gambhir, a 2004 batch Gujarat cadre who is DIG, CBI, Delhi — to central agencies only strengthened the case of Modi’s critics.
Ranged against Asthana in his tussle is another Modi favourite, A.K. Sharma.
Multiple sources told ThePrint that Verma also has the support of BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who thinks that by backing Asthana despite the long list of charges against him, a section in the PMO has hurt the image of the government.
Swamy, a bitter critic of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, has also accused Asthana of trying to help former union minister P. Chidambaram and his son Karti in the Aircel-Maxis deal case.
What has surprised many is the complete silence of Prime Minister Modi despite multiple attacks by his party’s MP on his finance minister.
Another sidelight in this war is the role of controversial ED officer Rajeshwar Singh, who is himself the target of multiple attacks from the Asthana group. Sources said Rajeshwar, who is “very close” to several senior CBI officers, has also been active behind the scenes so far in helping build a case against Asthana.
Rajeshwar and his supporters apparently suspect Asthana is trying to “fix” Rajeshwar. But, whatever be the outcome of this current round, senior government functionaries acknowledge that this ugly chapter in the history of India’s premier investigation agency is nowhere close to ending.