Buck And No Bang

The scam allegedly involved the bribing of opposition MPs to vote in favour of the UPA-I government during the nuclear deal trust vote in the Lok Sabha on July 22, 2008. In scenes that few have forgotten, three BJP MPs—Ashok Argal, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Bhagora—flashed wads of notes in the LS as “evidence” of being paid to defect. The Delhi Police, within the past week, have arrested Sanjeev Saxena and Suhail Hindustani, both of them central characters in arranging the money paid to the three MPs. Saxena, described by the police as former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh’s aide, has reportedly told interrogators that he got the money from Amar, who may have been trying to win support for the UPA-I government before the crucial vote. Hindustani, on the other hand, has been more direct in his allegations; he claims he received phone calls from Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary, Ahmed Patel, and those close to PM Manmohan Singh.

This hurried spate of interrogation and arrests comes after three years of feet-dragging by the police and less than a week after the SC’s indictment of the Delhi Police on July 15. The court was hearing a petition by former cec J.M. Lyngdoh who sought the setting up of an SIT to probe the scam.

Earlier, a parliamentary committee headed by Congress leader and now Union minister of tribal affairs and panchayati raj, Kishore Chandra Deo, had conducted a probe into the events that preceded the trust vote. It submitted its report in December ’08 but failed to unravel the case—and Deo had been accused by other members of “defending individuals rather than finding out the truth”. This, incidentally, refers to the fact that the committee did not question Amar Singh.

Right-wing ideologue Sudheendra Kulkarni, who was involved in the sting operation that claims to have laid bare the scam, points out, “It is baffling that Amar Singh has not been questioned even once, either by the parliamentary committee or by the police. This is proof enough that he has had spectacular protection...and this is because he helped the government survive.” While Kulkarni says he has been questioned twice and is ready to face interrogation as many times as required, he insists there is “no question that Amar Singh had a role”. “I was present when the money came from Amar Singh’s house through his emissary to the three BJP MPs. All this has been captured on camera.”

Mohammed Salim, former CPI(M) MP who was part of the parliamentary committee along with the BJP’s V.K. Malhotra, says he too had asked that Amar be called in and questioned for a thorough probe in his dissenting note in the final report. “But it was edited out, something that has happened for the first time in the history of our parliamentary democracy,” he says. One of the sections from his original note cut out by the parliamentary secretary talked about the “reluctance shown by the committee to summon and critically examine Amar Singh and Ahmed Patel”. “It will be most unfortunate if we fail to uncover the entire truth behind the scam...if the culprits remain at arm’s length because of a lack of political will,” he says.

Deo has argued that it was difficult to summon Amar Singh, a Rajya Sabha member then and now, to a panel of the Lok Sabha without prima facie evidence against him. Arguing that the Delhi Police investigation is a logical step forward from his report, Deo told reporters, “Had I given a clean chit (to Amar), then why would I have recommended further investigation into the matter? The current investigation would not have happened without my recommendation. It was clear that something was wrong but a parliamentary committee is not an investigating authority.”

The committee indeed had asked that the scam “be probed further by an appropriate investigating agency” and had called for a review of the procedures followed to get a member of one house of Parliament to depose at the hearing of a committee of the other house.

The Opposition, obviously, has latched on to the latest developments to attack the government. BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman says, “It is a government that is hamstrung by its misdeeds, always reacting to situations rather than being proactive about redressing problems.” She adds that the government’s tactic of “attacking the whistleblowers” instead of getting down to exposing the truth is no longer tenable. “The BJP MPs along with others clearly exposed the government’s intent to buy votes...this is something that will touch a raw chord and hit the moral fibre of the government.” As investigating authorities get cracking on the case (under the constant, fierce gaze of the Supreme Court), the one question everyone is asking is: when will Amar Singh speak and how much will he reveal?