In 2018, Narendra Modi’s BJP govt stood for bickering, jostling & picking fights
Politics

In 2018, Narendra Modi’s BJP govt stood for bickering, jostling & picking fights

Modi government's constant conflict with one institution or the other and its adverse perception made it look like a fledgling force.

   
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah during BJP Parliamentary Party meeting | PTI Photo/Kamal Singh

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah during BJP Parliamentary Party meeting | PTI

Modi government’s constant conflict with one institution or the other and its adverse perception made it look like a fledgling force.

New Delhi: This past year has proved to be the toughest phase of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government’s five-year tenure yet, beginning and ending with heartland poll losses, but more importantly, being defined by a string of avoidable confrontations and firefighting on multiple fronts.

Electorally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s year began with a humiliating drubbing in Lok Sabha bypolls in Rajasthan’s Alwar and Ajmer and ended with a 3-0 loss to the Congress in assembly elections in heartland states.

However, it was the Modi government’s constant conflict with one institution or the other and the resultant adverse perception that made it look more like a fledgling force than an in-control, adept dispensation.

Judiciary

An unprecedented crisis in the judiciary marked the beginning of the year. On 12 January, four seniormost Supreme Court judges held a press conference against then Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra, raising the issue of assignment of cases.

The public outburst by Justices J. Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph took a political colour when the Congress went a step further and looked to move an impeachment motion against Misra. The CJI may have been the one in the line of fire, but the battle was seen to be as much against the Modi government.

The motion was eventually rejected by Vice-President of India M. Venkaiah Naidu.

However, the insistence of the Congress to press for an impeachment motion despite knowing it didn’t have the numbers or adequate ground for it in a way ended up making it seem more of a Congress versus BJP fight. With the motion rejected, it seemed the BJP succeeded in managing this round.


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Allies

For a government with a mandate like the one NDA came to power with, the stamp of having faced a no-confidence motion in Parliament would be entirely avoidable.

However, its confrontation with ally N. Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) over a special category status to Andhra Pradesh led the TDP to walk out of the NDA. A no-confidence motion was moved by the TDP in July, and supported by the Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and other opposition parties, but with its comfortable numbers, the Modi government sailed through it.

But this wasn’t the only example of the BJP’s conflict with its allies. Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Samata Party — an ally in Bihar — also broke ties. Several other allies, including long-time Maharashtra partner Shiv Sena, have been flexing their muscles too.

The tussle with allies continues but given its weakened electoral track record, the BJP will perhaps have to yield more space to regional partners, just as it was forced to do with Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP in Bihar.

CBI

The biggest imbroglio for the government this year was the very public internal war in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The brazen in-fighting between CBI director Alok Verma and special director Rakesh Asthana was uncomfortable, to say the least, and the Modi government’s perceived proximity to Asthana only made matters worse. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was forced to step in, and government was compelled to strip both off their respective charge.

The matter reached the Supreme Court with Verma seeking a stay of the central government’s order asking him to proceed on leave. The court refused to issue a stay order but prohibited interim CBI director M. Nageshwar Rao from taking any major decisions. The matter is still being heard in court.

Enforcement Directorate

After CBI, it was the turn of India’s second-most powerful investigative agency. At the end of October, Enforcement Directorate (ED) joint director Rajeshwar Singh, who faces allegations of amassing disproportionate assets, was issued a show-cause notice.

Singh was put under investigation for writing a letter against then revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia in June.

Last month, Singh’s study leave to pursue a Master’s degree in law was cancelled by the government.


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Reserve Bank of India (RBI)

This was a long-drawn battle, which eventually ended with the resignation of RBI governor Urjit Patel on 10 December, nine months before the completion of his term. While Patel cited “personal reasons” for his decision, the tussle between the central bank and the Modi government was hardly a secret.

The points of contention were many — transferring RBI’s excess reserves to the government, relaxing the restrictive Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) framework for 11 state-owned bank, and the larger question of the central bank’s autonomy.

The government’s move to appoint loyalists like Swadeshi Jagran Manch co-convenor S. Gurumurthy and former Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad treasurer Satish Marathe to the RBI board as part-time, non-official directors in August further fuelled a perception of government interference.

In what was seen as an unmistakable message to the government, deputy governor Viral Acharya underscored the importance of the central bank’s autonomy for long-term financial stability during a speech in October.

Patel’s resignation was, thus, the proverbial last nail in the coffin, which reflected the RBI’s great discomfiture with what it viewed as Modi government’s meddling in the matters of the central bank.

The Swamy factor

Controversial BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy consistently baited the government this year, lashing out at its bureaucrats and ministers in some his tweets.

For instance, take this tweet from October.

“The Gang of Four may presently swear by Namo but their aim is to structure the head ships of key institutions especially CBI ED IT RAW RBI etc by March 2019 to prepare, if BJP gets less than 220 LS seats, to foist a Congi friendly insider patron as PM: Coup d’état in the making,” he said.

Swamy has been continuously attacking Finance Minister Arun Jaitley as well as some top officials in the PMO, and with this tweet, he seemed to indicate how those close to Modi may use their proximity to damage him.

In another tweet on 24 October, he said, “The players in the CBI massacre are about to suspend ED’s Rajeshwar (Singh) so that he cannot file the chargesheet against PC. If so I will have no reason to fight the corrupt since my govt is hell bent on protecting them. I shall then withdraw from all the corruption cases I have filed.”