It was about a month ago that I heard the country's Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, boast that the Modi government's biggest achievement in its first year was a corruption-free administration and that there was no scam or scandal. Every leader in the BJP, big or small, parroted this line. They can't any longer. Sushma Swaraj, the Foreign Minister, has admitted that she helped ex-IPL commissioner, Lalit Modi, a fugitive in the eyes of the law. There is a blue corner notice against him, the Enforcement Directorate has been investigating him and not long ago his passport was revoked. There are serious charges of match fixing and embezzlement of 700 crores.
Sushma Swaraj is a heavyweight politician and is widely respected by every section of the society. Before Narendra Modi won the Gujarat elections in 2012 for the third time in a row, she was considered the next prime ministerial candidate of the BJP. She was considered a favourite of the RSS and of Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray for the top job. She was anointed Leader of Opposition in place of LK Advani but with the emergence of Narendra Modi, she was eclipsed and had to accept a subordinate position in the cabinet. But she remains a potential threat to Mr Modi. So the recent controversy is not as simple as it appears. There is undoubtedly a serious issue of propriety - a foreign minister of the country is helping a fugitive by picking up the phone - but there is a political angle too.
I am aghast to see the brazen defence of Sushma Swaraj by BJP president Amit Shah and the RSS. Both have linked her act to nationalism and patriotism, which is a sham. The BJP is in the habit of hiding behind nationalism after any wrongdoing. The fact is that the foreign minister has admitted that she helped a fugitive. Whether or not it was on humanitarian grounds does not matter, for two reasons. First, will she again pick up the phone if Dawood Ibrahim or Chhota Rajan or Abu Salem or any terrorist requests her for help in obtaining travel documents because someone in the family has cancer or any other illness? I am dead sure she won't. Second, there is a question of quid pro quo. Lalit Modi purportedly helped her nephew get admission in Sussex University. Her daughter had been a member of Lalit Modi's lawyers' team. Sushma Swaraj's husband has also helped him as a lawyer. It's no coincidence that Lalit Modi, after getting his travel documents, sent a thank you email to Swaraj Kaushal. Why was the note sent to the foreign minister's husband? Does it convey something?
Propriety demands that she should resign. On similar grounds, the BJP, led by Ms Swaraj in Parliament, asked for the resignation of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in 2010. Mr Tharoor, then minister of state for foreign affairs and blue-eyed boy of the Congress leadership, was cornered by the same Lalit Modi in a tweet in which he hinted at Mr Tharoor's involvement in a case of sweat equity of 70 crore with one of the IPL franchisees. Mr Tharoor was not directly involved but the BJP forced him to resign. Till now, nothing has happened in that case.
Then there is the curious case of Ashwini Kumar, former law minister, (and very close to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh) who had asked the CBI to come to his office with the progress report of the coal scam investigations. He was accused of pressuring the investigating agency to manipulate the report. Protests erupted in Parliament and Ashwini Kumar was left with no option but to quit the cabinet. Till now there is no case against him.
Then there is the case of Pawan Bansal, former cabinet minister of company affairs. His nephew was caught fixing transfers and postings using Pawan Bansal's name. Before the case was investigated he exited the ministry. Again, no case has been registered against him.
Every time these scandals surfaced during the UPA regime, the BJP did not let Parliament function for weeks. Hundreds of hours of parliamentary business were wasted. The BJP would relent only when the minister in question resigned owning moral responsibility.
If Sushma Swaraj has set such high standards of morality in public life, then it's now incumbent on her to live up to them. She can't hide behind the "humanitarian" facade. Even there her defence is weak. If Lalit Modi was asking for travel documents, then he should have applied through the proper channels of bureaucracy. There was no need for the foreign minister to pick up the phone and talk to the British High Commissioner. The UPA government had taken a diametrically opposite stand and conveyed to the UK that if he was granted the document then it would affect the relationship between the two countries. The Manmohan Singh government had taken a tougher stand on this issue than the Modi government.
Let us also not forget that Lalit Modi had a very close relationship with the BJP. During Vasundhara Raje's first tenure as Chief Minister of Rajasthan, he was considered to be the man running the state administration. It was at this time that he came into prominence and became the president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association before making a lateral entry into the BCCI and subsequently assuming charge as the board's Vice President and commissioner of the Indian Premier League.
But the bigger question today is not whether Sushma Swaraj should resign. The question that should be asked is if Prime Minister Modi will retain her in the cabinet. It was he who had said, "Neither do I indulge in corruption, nor do I let anyone do so." Will he be true to his promise? I don't think so. He is in the habit of throwing such jumla or rhetorics in public life without any follow-up action. Had he been true to his words, he would not have inducted in his government Sanjeev Baliyan, an accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots, and Nihal Chand, who has been accused by a woman in Jaipur of rape. Almost 30% of his cabinet has serious criminal cases pending. And PM Modi has no problem sharing the table with them.
The bitter truth of Indian politics is that the BJP and the Congress wear shades of the same value system. Once out of power, they talk big but in the government, they speak a different language. I won't be surprised if Sushma Swaraj continues to function as a minister despite the media and public outcry. But it will certainly diminish the aura around Modi and his leadership. Manmohan Singh was lucky not to suffer such taints in his first term.
And this is just the beginning - many more scandals are waiting in the wings.
(Ashutosh joined the Aam Aadmi Party in January 2014. The former journalist took on former Union minister Kapil Sibal and Health Minister Harsh Vardhan in the national election from Chandni Chowk in Delhi.)
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