I have no idea whether the Narendra Modi government intends to arrest Delhi’s deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia. But judging by past precedents, this is not unlikely. These things have come to follow a predictable pattern.
First, there are official or semi-official exclamations of shock and horror as we are told that a ‘very big scam’ has been discovered. Then, after a couple of days, there are raids by central investigative agencies such as ED or CBI, which don’t necessarily recover anything of value but make for breathless TV coverage. Stage three is the arrest itself. The arrested persons are highly influential, the agencies tell the court, and argue against giving them bail by claiming they can destroy evidence or intimidate witnesses. Oh right, says the judge, and promptly sends the accused off to jail.
Some day, perhaps something will come of the case, perhaps it won’t. But for the time being, the purpose has been served. The person is in jail. The scandal is on the front pages.
Also read: ‘Undue benefits to licensees, loss to exchequer’: What CBI’s excise FIR says on Sisodia & others
The AAP vs Congress battle
Frankly, I don’t understand how strong the evidence against Sisodia in the liquor policy case is. Nor does anybody else I have spoken to. Perhaps the CBI has yet to fully reveal what it has. So, I am not going to make any comments.
My concern here is with the consequence of the case against Sisodia: the battle between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The Congress has long claimed that the agencies have become a repressive political arm of the Modi government. Every rival party of consequence will be subjected to raids and arrests over alleged economic offences. It is, the Congress has said, a complete misuse of the investigative agencies to intimidate and harass the government’s political rivals.
To be fair to the Congress, it took this position long before the agencies got involved in the National Herald case (which wasn’t a government initiative at all but started out as a personal crusade by Subramanian Swamy) and summoned Rahul and Sonia Gandhi for questioning.
But when that did happen, the Congress took to the streets, courted arrest and denounced the agencies. The opposition would not be intimidated by such tactics, it declared.
Then, the Sisodia saga began.
One could expect that, as a party that has loudly proclaimed that the agencies are being misused by the Modi government to harass non-BJP parties, the Congress would join in the chaos of disapproval and condemn the agencies once again.
Far from it.
While Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera did tweet to criticise the “relentless misuse of agencies against political rivals”, the party, by and large, celebrated the raid on Sisodia and welcomed the FIR against him. This is a huge scam, Congress leaders say. AAP is full of crooks. These charges are the proof.
Can the Congress keep accusing the government of misusing the agencies every day and then suddenly, when Sisodia becomes the target, declare that the agencies are doing the right thing just because it believes that the AAP runs a scam-ridden government and that Sisodia is probably guilty?
The Congress has no real answers to questions about its double standards. The most you will get by way of a response is abuse of AAP: it is no more than the ‘B’ team of the BJP, it is an RSS creation; its leaders are dodgy characters; Arvind Kejriwal is a horrible man who kept his mouth shut when Sonia Gandhi was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate; and so on. Not all of this makes sense: if AAP really is a BJP front, why then is the BJP targeting it?
But there is a historical grievance at work here.
Also read: Don’t laugh at Anna Hazare. He was himself the victim
Congress indeed has a reason
Halfway through UPA 2, the Manmohan Singh government was crippled by corruption allegations. Many of them had their origins in a series of dubious CAG reports, which have not stood the test of time. (That ‘notional loss’ figure in the so-called 2G scam must be the biggest lie told to Indians in decades.)
These allegations destroyed the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), specifically the Congress that led it. But they also created the AAP. We sometimes forget how AAP grew out of ‘India Against Corruption’ — a media-hyped, so-called mass movement, allegedly led by Anna Hazare (remember him?) — which claimed that corruption had now reached such levels that only a Lok Pal (remember that?) could set things right.
It was ‘India Against Corruption’ that ripped the heart out of the Congress and cleared the way for Narendra Modi. As time went on, nearly everybody of consequence who had once been part of that movement was thrown under the bus, starting with poor, deluded Anna Hazare, and the AAP emerged as a political vehicle for Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi CM) and his close associate Manish Sisodia.
Nobody in the Congress has forgotten or forgiven AAP for the things its leaders said and did during that period. The allegation about it being the ‘B’ team of the BJP is clearly unfounded but it has its roots in the way Kejriwal functioned as a pilot car for Modi, emptying the roads for his eventual accession. And there is a widely held belief that the crowds at the ‘India Against Corruption’ meetings were mobilised by the RSS.
The Congress’ view is: who cares if the charges are valid or not? Kejriwal and Sisodia knew that the things they said about Manmohan Singh and the UPA were lies. But they never let the truth come in the way of their ambition. So why should the Congress afford them the consideration and support that they refused to grant anyone else?
I think the Congress is wrong. Justice cannot be about revenge. But I can see where the party is coming from.
Also read: India’s founders kept repressive laws in the book. Today’s politicians show how wrong it was
Why reassessment is key for all
As the Modi government works its way towards arresting Sisodia, all political parties must pause and reconsider their positions.
Arvind Kejriwal is one of India’s shrewdest and slipperiest politicians. But he always walks a tightrope. He is against communalism but he won’t speak up against injustices to Muslims. He stands for honesty in public life but there are serious corruption charges against his ministers. He says the investigative agencies are being “asked from above” to target leaders but won’t say a word when the Congress is targeted by the same agencies. At some stage, he risks falling off his tightrope.
The Congress must decide whether it makes tactical sense to applaud the actions of the very agencies that are being used against it because it does not like the people the government is out to get. Who is its real enemy: the BJP or the other opposition parties?
And the BJP needs to work out how far it can take its so-called campaign against corruption. Yes, many politicians are corrupt. So nobody is surprised when the agencies pursue them. But a day will come when more and more people will ask: is every BJP politician honest? How come it is only the non-BJP politicians who get raided? And how is it that the corrupt politicians who join the BJP suddenly become immune to any kind of investigation or prosecution?
Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist, and talk show host. He tweets at @virsanghvi. Views are personal.