Belligerence tells a Story

Why is the Congress so adamant about refusing to set up a JPC to probe the 2G Spectrum scam? Whom is the party trying to shield?

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The Congress has been blocking a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the 2G Spectrum scam and behaving as if such an inquiry could prove fatal to the party’s image and political prospects. Going by past record, it must be said at the very outset that the party has never held out this long and staked its reputation merely to protect a Minister, that too one from an alliance party. Is there a message in the party’s obduracy?

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A glimpse at what transpired in three earlier JPCs may help us answer this Rs 1.76 lakh crore question. The first of the three JPCs in question was the one which probed the Bofors deal. This committee was set up, after much resistance, following revelations made by Swedish Radio on April 16, 1987 that Indian politicians and officials had been bribed by the Swedish arms-maker Bofors to win the contract to supply field guns to the Indian Army.

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The deal was signed by the Rajiv Gandhi Government just a year before news of the scandal broke. Though the Congress had 410 MPs in the Lok Sabha, it was rattled by the ‘breaking news’ from Sweden and launched a massive cover-up to shield Rajiv Gandhi and his family from the allegation that they had received commissions from Bofors via front companies and friends with Swiss bank accounts. As more and more information about the payoffs poured in, the Opposition stepped up the pressure for a JPC.

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The Congress conceded the demand three months hence when it realised that the people had begun to believe that the Prime Minister had something to hide. However, even as it did so, it ensured that the terms of reference put the committee in a straitjacket. It did not want the committee to travel abroad or record the testimonies of witnesses in Sweden and Switzerland.

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Given these constraints, the Opposition felt that the JPC was a toothless wonder and decided to stay away. The Congress, however, went ahead with this lame duck inquiry, packed the committee with loyalists of the Nehru-Gandhi family and chose the most trusted loyalist — Mr B Shankaranand — as its chairman.

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Since it had over 400 members in the Lok Sabha, this JPC was an overwhelmingly ‘Congress Parliamentary Committee’. Further, in order to give the committee an ‘all-party’ veneer, some MPs of the smaller ‘friendly’ parties, which reluctantly occupy Opposition benches, were drafted as members.

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As can be seen from the final outcome, Mr Shankaranand lived up to the great expectations that his leader had in him and produced a report which was dubbed a ‘whitewash’ by all citizens who could sift fiction from fact. The committee claimed in its April 1988 report that no middleman was involved in the field gun deal and there was no evidence of commissions or bribes having been paid.

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The committee did not summon a single Minister or pose a single question that would have embarrassed the Government. Within weeks, the media produced damning evidence of payments made by Bofors to several entities, including Ottavio Quattrocchi, a friend of Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi, in whose account Bofors had deposited $7.3 million.

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A year later, the Comptroller and Auditor-General questioned many conclusions of this JPC, including the ones pertaining to agents and commissions. He wondered why the Government had not acted on the advice of the Indian Ambassador in Sweden that Bofors’s books of account be examined by Indian auditors and why the Bofors contract did not specifically contain the “No Agents” clause. As all this evidence tumbled out, it became obvious that the Shankaranand Committee Report was not worth the paper it was printed in. No other parliamentary committee has wrought such damage to the institution of Parliament as this one.

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But then, the credibility and dignity of Parliament has always been sacrificed by the Congress to protect its first family. The party even reduced Parliament to a rubber stamp to enable Mrs Indira Gandhi to survive in office after she was unseated by the Allahabad High Court for corrupt electoral practice.

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However, the party displays sweet reasonableness and becomes responsive to public opinion when the Nehru-Gandhis are not involved, for example, the sacking of Mr Ashok Chavan over the Adarsh Cooperative Housing scandal.

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That is why the JPC that probed irregularities in securities and banking transactions between August 1992 and December 1993 when PV Narasimha Rao was Prime Minister produced a comprehensive report with minimal interference by the Congress. Similarly, the JPC on the Stock Market Scam (constituted in April 2001; report submitted in December 2002) when Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Prime Minister did an exhaustive analysis of the problem and compelled the Government to step up vigilance and regulation in the financial sector.

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Mr Manmohan Singh was examined by both these JPCs (as Finance Minister in 1993 and former Finance Minister in 2002). Apart from Mr Singh, the 1992-93 JPC examined Mr Shankaranand, Health Minister, who earlier held the petroleum portfolio, and Madhu Dandavate, former Finance Minister. The 2001-2002 JPC examined two Ministers — Finance Minister Jaswant Singh and External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha — and two former Ministers, Mr Manmohan Singh and Mr P Chidambaram.

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But, despite all this experience, why is the Prime Minister blocking a JPC probe into the 2G Scam and why is he afraid of possible summons from the committee? Why should a man with such abundant familiarity with JPCs flinch at the prospect of another tete-a-tete with a JPC now? Whom is he protecting? Those who say nothing comes of JPC investigations have obviously not read the reports of these two committees. It is rather strange to hear spokespersons of the Congress saying this, unless of course they have the Bofors JPC in mind.

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According to the CAG, the 2G scam could have cost us Rs 1.76 lakh crore. This is possibly the biggest loss that a Minister has caused to the exchequer via a single policy in the democratic world. If this is not worthy of a JPC probe, pray, what is? Yet, the Congress has held out throughout the Winter session of Parliament and, displaying utter contempt for public opinion and parliamentary processes.

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There are enough clues in history as to when the party displays such crass obstinacy. So, if you think the 2G Spectrum scam is all about Mr A Raja and the DMK, think again. You could be barking up the wrong tree.