The arrest of senior NCP leader and former deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, Chhagan Bhujbal, on Monday in a case of money- laundering was not entirely unexpected. He has been under the lens of various anti-corruption agencies for sometime now.
A couple of weeks ago, his son, Pankaj, and nephew, Sameer, were interrogated by the Enforcement Directorate in the same case. The ED claims that Bhujbal as PWD Minister in the Congress-NCP Government had caused the public exchequer a loss of Rs.870 crores. He is accused of receiving kickbacks from a hand-picked contractor who was assigned the construction of Maharashtra Sadan in New Delhi, the Kalina Central Library and a new Regional Transport Office building in Andheri, Mumbai.
The ED claims to have traced the trail of cash received in bribes by Bhujbal and its laundering through a circuitous route back to companies floated by his family. Sworn statements of the key facilitators such as the chartered accountants, the hawala traders, brokers, etc., were already recorded by the agency.
It seems shell companies were floated to make it appear that genuine investors had bought shares of the companies controlled by the Bhujbal family and which claimed to be in the construction and allied businesses. A dozen fictitious entities located in Kolkata invested in Bhujbals’ companies, some of them buying shares of ten-rupee face value at a premium of Rs 900 per share.
The companies in question, namely, Parvesh Construction Pvt. Ltd and Armstrong Energy Private Ltd, are fully owned and controlled by the Bhujbals. Notably, a few days ago when Bhujbal Sr was first summoned for interrogation, the NCP boss, Sharad Pawar, had criticised the NDA Government for carrying out a witch-hunt. Pawar, in fact, had alleged that a BJP Member of Parliament was hounding Bhujbal.
He did not name the said MP. However, his name is widely known. Kirit Somaiya, who represents the Mumbai North-East constituency in the Lok Sabha, deserves to be congratulated for going after the corrupt. People of Maharashtra cannot thank him enough for insisting on a probe against corrupt politicians.
As for Pawar, he may have had his own compulsions to intercede on behalf of a corrupt colleague who claims to be the OBC face of the NCP. Besides, Pawar cannot but defend colleagues under the corruption lens given his own sordid record in these matters. Indeed, his own nephew Ajit Pawar, who succeeded Bhujbal as deputy chief minister in another NCP-Congress government, is facing probe for massive irrigation scam. Progress in investigations in the charges against Ajit Pawar seems to be rather slow.
Hopefully, the investigations are still underway. Once a well-administered State, Maharashtra is now one big cesspool of corruption and misrule. Corruption is the common link between most parties, though the current government seems to have remained by and large untouched by the malignant disease. Of course, notwithstanding Bhujbal’s pro forma cries about political vendetta, the authorities must get to the root of his wrong-doing and recover the public funds to the extent possible.
The sting operation which has exposed a number of senior Trinamool Congress leaders on the eve of the Assembly election only underlines the fact that politics and corruption are inseparable partners. Even though Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her colleagues have sought to rubbish the sting as an entrapment, yet given the number of top TMC leaders and, surprisingly, even a senior police officer, caught on the grainy camera, the matter does call for a fair and independent probe.
The video and the audio is often not clear enough, but there is no doubt that those seen taking wads of currency are embarrassed and unable to explain why they let their guard down and allowed themselves to be thus compromised. In the digital age, every citizen with a smart phone is a sleuth. He can land you in trouble.
However, both the timing of the release of the sting and the persons behind it do raise grave misgivings about the real motive behind it. Given that the main person behind the sting is the same who had originally Trapped — yes, with a capital ‘T’— then BJP President, the late Bangaru Laxman, the suspicion of a Congress Party hand cannot be entirely ruled out.
The Congress leadership, synonymous with corruption in the public, is desperate to establish equivalence on this score with all other parties. Therefore, how the sting operators were able to raise over a crore of rupees and their motives too need to be probed. Such ill-conceived interventions by a few freelance journalists into the political world might, otherwise, sully the image of the fourth estate as well.
Meanwhile, given the weakened challenge to the TMC, it is unlikely that the sting operation would dent Mamata Banerjee’s prospects to retain power in the coming election, though it would certainly give her opponents to throw some muck at her.
