EDITS | Tuesday, May 18, 2010 | Email | Print |  | Back
Tossed around by partners
A Surya Prakash
A s the United Progressive Alliance Government enters the second year in office since its return to power in 2009, it is becoming increasingly clear that the coalition’s politics of survival is proving to be detrimental to the maintenance of standards in public life. Recent events also show that the office of Prime Minister is becoming weaker by the day and that he has virtually lost the power to either discipline or sack non-Congress members of the Union Council of Ministers.
The continuance of the Telecom Minister, Mr A Raja, and the Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister, Mr MK Alagiri, in the Government is indicative of the normlessness that is creeping in and the declining authority of the Prime Minister.
In fact, the presence of Mr Raja in the Union Cabinet despite the serious charges of corruption and favouritism levelled against him is a text book case of how helpless a Prime Minister can become when dealing with Ministers who do not belong to his party. Mr Raja is at the centre of what is called the 2G Spectrum licence scandal — a scam that has been brought to light by the thorough and dogged investigations of The Pioneer’s journalist J Gopikrishnan.
These investigations establish that Mr Raja decided to make the 2 G Spectrum allotments after he became Telecom Minister in 2007 and fixed October 1 of that year as the cut-off date for receiving applications. However, when he announced the list of winning bidders in early 2008, he sprang a surprise by declaring that the cut-ff date had been advanced to September 25, 2007.
Also, there was evidence of collusion between the Minister’s office and some of the allottees. Since the Spectrum licence allocation looked very fishy, many investigating agencies, including the CBI and the Income Tax Department, began probing the matter. The CBI came into the picture after the Central Vigilance Commission felt that this scam warranted a full-fledged probe. The Income Tax authorities taped the conversations of the Minister with a lobbyist and found that the entire licencing procedure had been vitiated. They also gathered evidence of possible kickbacks being deposited in tax havens and ploughed back through proxy entities in India.
It is estimated that Mr Raja’s decisions vis-à-vis 2G Spectrum have cost the exchequer at least Rs 1 lakh crore. The Pioneer has also reported that the Minister had even ignored the advice of the Prime Minister that the allocations should not be made without his consent. The tapping of telephones and the preparation of transcripts of conversations involving a Cabinet Minister is indeed extraordinary. Equally extraordinary are the raids conducted by the CBI in the offices of the Telecom Ministry. The evidence produced by the tax authorities and the CBI is enough to warrant prosecution of the Minister and his cohorts who manipulated the award of licences. The continuance of such a Minister in the Government is unprecedented and is far more scandalous than the 2G scam itself.
Mr MK Alagiri is another Minister who ought to be shown the door. This Minister is neither seen in office nor in Parliament. He was absent when the Lok Sabha discussed the shortage of fertilisers and seeds last November. There was turmoil in both Houses of Parliament yet again during the recently concluded Budget Session because of his absence. Members were informed that the Minister was holidaying in Maldives when Parliament was in session. His deputy Mr.Srikant Jena was standing in for him but the Government did not have a satisfactory explanation when MPs asked whether Ministers could be on holiday while Parliament was in session. No Minister belonging to the Congress would dare do something like this.
Ministers like Mr Alagiri, who hail from parties like the DMK, know that the survival of the Government depends on their continued support. So, they cock a snook at the Prime Minister and behave as if the rules of conduct just do not apply to them. But, the Minister’s absence from Parliament during the Budget Session poses a bigger problem. How can Parliament ensure accountability of Ministers if it even cannot ensure their presence in the two Houses?
Contrast this complete lack of manoeuvrability on the part of the Prime Minister vis-à-vis Ministers belonging to alliance partners with his tough as nails approach to Ministers from the Congress. The best example is that of Mr Shashi Tharoor. He was ticked off publicly for his policy-related remarks on Twitter. Then IPLgate happened and the Rs 70 crore sweat equity given to his lady friend by the owners of the Kochi IPL team sealed his fate.
Mr Tharoor had done wrong. It was a classic case of misuse of office and nepotism and he lost his job. The Congress has a tradition of rendering swift justice in such matters, provided the person at the centre of the controversy is not a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family. The BJP too has a record of dealing firmly with party officials and Ministers who become a source of embarrassment.
However, national parties become weak-kneed when they have to deal with corrupt or incompetent Ministers belonging to their allies. Since the first priority of the Prime Minister is to ensure majority support in the Lok Sabha, he hesitates to pull up such Ministers, lest he offend an alliance partner and jeopardise his Government. Aware of the Prime Minister’s vulnerability on this score, many of these Ministers behave as if they are not bound either by the norms or the rules that govern the conduct of Ministers. Mr Manmohan Singh is not the first Prime Minister who has had to make such compromises.
Mr HD Deve Gowda and Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee also suffered such constraints while in office. This is easily the most negative feature of coalition politics. If we wish to ensure that the executive remains accountable to Parliament, we need to do something to stop Ministers like Mr Raja and Mr Alagiri from misusing office and undermining the dignity of Parliament.
That can happen only if the presiding officers of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha step in to make such Ministers answerable to Parliament. Such a no-nonsense approach by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha may also insulate the Prime Minister from the tyranny of the smaller parties and put an end to the adharma of coalition politics.
Email | Print | Rate:
|