New Delhi: When the news broke Wednesday that former Union telecom minister and Himachal Pradesh political stalwart Sukh Ram had passed away at age 94, glowing tributes to his eventful career came pouring in quickly. Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi, too, praised his “long years of service to the people of Himachal Pradesh and as a Union minister” in a letter of condolence written to his grandson Aashray Sharma.
But Sukh Ram’s legacy is not a straightforward one. While he was indeed a popular leader in Himachal and served as Union minister in the Rajiv Gandhi and P.V. Narasimha Rao governments, corruption charges against him when he held the telecom portfolio in 1996 became a big scandal at the time, complete with reported details of bank notes stuffed into suitcases and rolled into bed linen.
In her letter, Sonia Gandhi wrote that “the Congress party always relied on his counsel and wisdom”, but Sukh Ram had switched loyalties more than once, most notably allying with the BJP to topple the Congress government in Himachal in 1998. As a nonagenarian, he returned to the Congress fold ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2019, describing it as a “homecoming”.
Hon. #Congress President Smt #SoniaGandhi Ji's Condolence message on the sad demise of Veteran Congress Leader Pandit Shri #SukhRam Ji. pic.twitter.com/rRitVO2Vo3
— Sanjay Dutt ?? #JaiHind (@SanjaySDutt) May 11, 2022
Despite his chequered career, Sukh Ram remained popular in Himachal Pradesh until the end, remembered more for his achievements than for the allegations against him. His biggest legacy in his home state is the ushering in of the telecom revolution in the 1990s, Harish Thakur, professor of political science at Himachal Pradesh University, told ThePrint.
“He was a big name in Himachal politics. When he was the telecom minister, his biggest contribution to Himachal Pradesh was the extension of the communication network in the state. He brought lots of investment to Himachal when he held the independent charge as the minister,” Thakur said.
ThePrint revisits some of the key turning points in Sukh Ram’s long and winding political trajectory.
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Rise to the top, followed by ‘telecom scam’
Born in 1927 to a humble family in Himachal’s Mandi district, Sukh Ram obtained a BA from Panjab University and later a law degree from Delhi University’s Faculty of Law. He reportedly served briefly as a postal clerk and went on to practice law in Mandi district in 1953, making his first foray into politics in 1962 as a member of the Territorial Council (the precursor to the Legislative Assembly) in Himachal Pradesh.
The young Congressman quickly rose to prominence, winning his first Assembly election in 1963 and going on to represent Mandi as an MLA until 1985; in this period, he also held various ministerial berths in the state, including finance, power, and agriculture.
The charismatic leader’s big leap to the national stage took place in 1985, when he was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time. Under the Rajiv Gandhi government, he was appointed as Minister of State for defence production and supplies (1986-88), and subsequently as MoS for planning (1988-89), and food and civil supplies (1988-1989).
He was re-elected to the Lok Sabha in 1991, and once again was given various ministerial berths in the Narasimha Rao government. In 1993, he was appointed as the Union minister of state (independent charge) for communications, and was credited with installing nearly 50 lakh telephone lines during his three-year tenure.
However, in 1996, the CBI raided Sukh Ram’s houses in Delhi and Mandi and he was accused of misusing his tenure as communications minister for personal gain. One of the accusations against him was that he awarded a cable supply contract worth Rs 30 crore to a private firm called Haryana Telecom Limited. In 2011, when he was in his 80s, Sukh Ram was found guilty by a Delhi court of taking a bribe to award this contract and was sentenced to five years in prison. However, due to his age and ailments, the Delhi High Court granted him bail and suspended his jail sentence.
This, notably, was not the only case against Sukh Ram dating from his tenure as telecom minister. In 2002, he was given a three-year jail sentence under the Prevention of Corruption Act for reportedly “defrauding” the state exchequer of Rs 1.66 lakh by awarding a contract to a Hyderabad-based company called Advanced Radio Masts that allegedly supplied poor-quality equipment at a high rate.
In 2009, a CBI court also found Sukh Ram guilty of amassing disproportionate assets worth Rs 4.25 crore.
But even as these cases dragged on, Sukh Ram continued with his political machinations.
A ‘king-maker’ for the BJP
In the wake of the corruption scandal, the Congress expelled Sukh Ram in 1996, but the Himachal leader was not willing to retire to the hills.
In 1997, he and his son, Anil Sharma, launched a new political outfit called the Himachal Vikas Congress, and contested the 1998 Assembly polls in the state.
In that election, the Congress and BJP won 31 seats each, and the onus of breaking the tie fell to Sukh Ram, whose party had managed to bag five seats — no mean feat for a new party. In what became Himachal Pradesh’s first coalition government, Sukh Ram joined hands with the BJP.
However, he hadn’t quite abandoned his political alma mater for good. Sukh Ram rejoined the Congress in 2004, when the Virbhadra Singh government came to power, but grew increasingly disaffected about being sidelined in the party.
In 2017, reportedly annoyed at being snubbed by Rahul Gandhi at a rally, he hopped over to the BJP again with his son Anil Sharma, in a move that is said to have helped the BJP get nine out of 10 seats in Mandi. The veteran leader returned to Congress again in 2019, along with his grandson Aashray Sharma, before the Lok Sabha elections.
Despite managing to stay relevant in state politics and acting as a “game-changer”, Sukh Ram never regained his pre-1996 stature, political scientist Harish Thakur said.
“As a Congress leader, he was not getting the same respect even on the state level… He was a former cabinet-ranked minister at the Centre but he didn’t get the same kind of honourable place in Congress after the charges,” Thakur said.
According to him, it seems unlikely that the next generations of Sukh Ram’s family will be able to match the patriarch’s influence.
“Mandi was a stronghold of Sukh Ram, but his son doesn’t have the same influence here, because he keeps changing parties… [the family’s] influence has become limited,” Thakur said.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
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