Dr Veda Pratap Vaidik
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former party chief Rahul Gandhi for questioning in a money laundering case. Apart from this Satyendar Jain, incumbent health minister in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi has been remanded to ED custody for 14 days. Lalu Prasad Yadav and Omprakash Chautala are already incarcerated. A few officers of the Jharkhand government are also in prison on various charges. Who are these people in custody? Interestingly they are all non-BJP leaders or people associated with those opposed to the saffron party. Many of them have served as either chief ministers, party presidents or officers of Opposition ruled states.
Finally the court will decide if those in custody are guilty or innocent. However it is delighting that none of those in jail or under probe are from the BJP. If all the leaders and workers of the BJP are clean and corruption free then the nation can cheerfully celebrate. How to ascertain their spotlessness? Have they ever given any kind of affidavit in public that they never committed any fraud or corruption in their career? At least I have not come across any single leader who dared to make any such claim of purity in public life.
Interestingly, only the opposition leaders are being booked for frauds and malpractices by the incumbent governments. Today BJP is trying to intimidate its political rivals- Congress, AAP, BSP and the Socialists. If the power equation changes in future there are possibilities these opposition parties jointly hound the BJP with no leniency. Will such attacks and counter attacks help to wipe out corruption from the system? No way possible. If any Prime Minister in power conducts raids on his own supporters or party colleagues before raiding the rivals, then we can presume that the intention is not to use power with discrimination, but to cleanse the system. First try to sanitize your own house and then go to others so that none will suspect your intent.
AAP has done this In Punjab, but it is unfortunate the same party is advocating Padma Vibhushan for their Delhi Health Minister who is in custody on money laundering charges. The Congress party is also showing total solidarity to their bosses. It is possible, investigations may prove them guilty but my question is why action against these people alone? Such discriminative and targeted moves will force people to speculate that your acting on political vendetta may possibly build up public apathy towards the ruling dispensation and the accused may garner sympathy. The arrest of Indira Gandhi by Charan Singh is an excellent example.
Once Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, during a personal conversation asked me if I could suggest any mantra to win the election. I told him that there were three mantras. The first one, go for a nuclear test. Second mantra, an abrupt military pounding of terrorist bases across the border, and my third suggestion was to conduct raids on corrupt Congressmen. Listening to my third suggestion he started laughing. He wondered loudly, if any government in power of any political party would dare to raid and arrest its leaders on corruption or criminal charges?
*Dr. Vaidik is a widely travelled scholar-journalist. He has visited more than 80 countries on diplomatic and educationalmissions. Dr. Vaidik has won more than a dozen National and International awards for academic and journalistic excellence. He has been a member of several Advisory Committees of Government of India.
