Why Has Natwar Singh Not Been Suspended Yet?

For the ruling Congress, which heads the UPA coalition, it was not just an unusual --and unprecedented -- situation, it seemed like time to take a tough stand: Aftermuch speculation, the Congress leader K.Natwar Singh -- backed by 33 MPs belonging to parties inimical to the government, the Samajwadi Party, the Telugu Desam Party and the AIADMK-- finally moved a breach of privilege motion against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha. The reason: the leak of the Justice Pathak committee report which indicts Natwar Singh and his son Jagat Singh for influencing and facilitating Oil for Food contracts which benefited family friend AndaleebSehgal.

Given that the notice was filed on a day that the Pathak Report, along with the government’s Action TakenReport (ATR), on the oil-for-food scam was officially tabled in Parliament -- substantiating the accusation that he had used the name of the Congress for gains to a family friend -- the high moral ground that Natwar Singh had hoped to take on a question of propriety – his allegation that it was leaked by the PMO – looked rather shaky.

For the Congress which, by and large, has shown little sympathy for Natwar Singh ever since the Volcker Committee’s report became public, the challenge to the Prime Minister – in the shape of a privilege notice – it looked as though there was little choice left but to prepare the grounds for his exit. But senior Congress leaders pointed out that it was tougher than it looked.

They said that since it was legitimate for any MP to file a privilege notice against any other MP, that by itself could not be held against him as the opposition might use it to label the party authoritarian. On the other hand, the dilemma was that the notice had been filed against a person no less than the Prime Minister – and his views would have to be elicited on the subject.

Indeed, at the time of writing, Congress leaders did not seem keen at all on any precipitate action against Natwar Singh, preferring that he be gradually rendered irrelevant – just as Madanlal Khurana was in the BJP not so long go. Crucially, with the PM’s statement on the key Indo-US nuclear deal – followed by a discussion --slated for August 10, the ruling Congress does not want Natwar Singh to go down like a martyr on that issue. As things stand, he is now part of a group of five leaders who have taken a common position on the deal – the others are the CPI-M’s Sitaram Yechury, the BJP’s Yashwant Sinha, the JD-U’s Digvijay Singh and the SP’s Amar Singh. Indeed,after visits by the BJP and JD (U) leaders to his house during the day, the five menalso reportedly met for dinner.

The Congress would, therefore, prefer the weight of public opinion rather than a party tribunal to go against Natwar Singh. For, it is more than clear that he is playing for high stakes – and trying to create a situation in which his departure from the party boosts efforts on to create a Third Front, months away from the crucial state elections in Uttar Pradesh, and link his exit not to wrongdoing in the Oil For Food scam but to an apparent "principled stand" on the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Already, the SP, along with the TDP and the AIADMK, has officially backed the privilege notice. The CPI (M), a key UPA partner, has also questioned the alleged leak even as it has shown itself to be on the same side of the political fence as the BJP on the Indo-US nuclear deal. For the major opposition party, the BJP, this has all been like manna from heaven.

Of course, the government has succeeded to a small extent in stemming the Third Front euphoria by tabling the Pathak report and the ATR – as this has, inevitably, deflected some of the attention to the actual contents of the report, particularly the three damning letters from Natwar Singh to the then Iraqi Oil Minister, which establish substantively that he had personally recommended Andaleeb Sehgal’s case.

In fact, the tone of the CPI(M) and the BJP changed somewhat after the public tabling of these documents. The CPI (M), after all, can’t afford to be seen condoning corruption. The BJP, on its part, sought to take a new tack – its leaders Arun Jaitley and Arun Shourie agreed separately that though Natwar Singh’s complicity had been established, the Pathak report did not go far enough – alleging that if it had, then the complicity of the Congress and their main target, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, would have been established as well.

Meanwhile, the government had got into damage control mode. In the morning, the union cabinet met and decided to table the Pathak committee report and theATR in Parliament. At a cabinet meeting today, the PM refuted allegations that the Pathak Committee Report on the Volcker issue was leaked from thePMO. Speaking to his cabinet colleagues, the PM said that he met Justice Pathak between 6:00-6:30 pm (IST) on Sunday. At that time, he said, excerpts from the report had already started appearing in a section of the media.

Simultaneously, the government – in the shape of union parliamentary affairs minister Priyaranjan Das Munshi – attacked Natwar Singh: Dismissing opposition charges that the PM or his office had leaked the Pathak report, he said, "I personally feel that it is unbecoming of a responsible member of any political party to bring any such kind of thing against the leader.."

Das Munshi , however prefaced his statement saying that privilege motion is the right of a member and added that "appropriate action at an appropriate time" will be taken. He, however, clarified that nothing would be done till the motion was debated and disposed off.

Clearly, this is not the last of the Natwar Singh saga.