By planting a cockamamie ‘inquiry’ report, Congress wants to tarnish a soldier’s reputation and the Prime Minister succeeds in drowning outrage over his nuclear liability fraud on the nation
If there’s one thing the Congress excels at, apart from plundering the national treasury through dubious deals at home and abroad, it is in slandering and defaming those who dare question its misdeeds. That’s the Congress’s way of dealing with stubborn political opposition —both organisations as well as individuals. The Congress abuses power and misuses authority to launch a dirty war of calumny and worse to tar reputations and discredit movements by planting questions in the minds of the naïve and ill-informed masses about the integrity of those who stand up to the party’s thuggery. This venality of the Congress surfaces whenever it faces serious political challenge; it is the most venomous when the challengers are unrelenting in their assault and unwavering in their defiance.
A couple of instances from the past would suffice to illustrate this point. During the Emergency, Indira Gandhi and her courtiers, with more than a little help from obliging sections of the media, sought to paint political opponents and their benefactors as agents of foreign forces out to destabilise India. That theme prevailed for a long time even after Indira Gandhi’s brutal exit from politics, first in 1977 when she was defeated in the general election and then in 1984 when she was assassinated. Her son and successor Rajiv Gandhi tried to stave off the challenge posed by VP Singh and his Jan Morcha by hatching the St Kitts conspiracy. Forged documents were used to malign VP Singh by making out that he was the “main beneficiary of a secret bank account with deposits amounting to $21 million” in the Caribbean Island of St Kitts. Once again obliging sections of the media were the co-conspirators in this elaborate spit-and-shame charade.
There were other instances too when the Congress, goaded by its First Family, went after its foes — and presumed retainers-turned-foes. Recall the shameful manner in which the contents of Amita Modi’s personal diary were leaked to the media after Sanjay Singh turned into a renegade after falling out of favour with the Palace. Investigations into Syed Modi’s murder predictably floundered and came to nought and the diary was never heard of again. But that’s another story to be told on another day. Nor is it consequential that Sanjay Singh has since turned into a Palace loyalist and sins of the past have been forgiven.
What is of relevance is the viciousness with which the Congress hits out when it feels cornered, or has the urge to strike down its enemies, using agencies and institutions of the state to achieve its deplorable objectives. Hence we had the Income Tax Department sending notices to investors who attended the Vibrant Gujarat global summit and signed MoUs with the Gujarat Government. The Union Finance Ministry instructed public sector banks not to do business with these investors. Of course, this was what is referred to as ‘collateral damage’ in the Congress’s dirty war on Narendra Modi — it was desperate to halt the rise of a potential challenger and took recourse to every possible dirty trick to achieve its goal.
That the Congress failed in its evil endeavour is not for want of effort or lack of being disingenuous — deceit, duplicity, deviousness and dishonesty are the four strands of the party’s DNA — but because its trickery was seen through by the very masses it sought to deceive. But the Congress is not one to give up easily; its armoury of dirty tricks is vast and its resources endless. Malevolence is the other name of the Congress and malice fouls the air of the Palace. Its attempt to implicate Modi in the post-Godhra violence having long failed, it sought to drag him into the slaying of jihadis, including Ishrat Jahan. That attempt hasn’t succeeded either but the Congress hasn’t quite given up either. Meanwhile, each assault has only served to make Modi stronger, making him wildly popular among the masses. Now that Modi is the BJP’s choice for the Prime Minister’s job in the event of winning the 2014 election, the Congress is desperate to not only tar him but also those who associate with him.
It is against this backdrop that we should view the sudden leak of the so-called Board of Officers report on the alleged misuse of Military Intelligence funds by the former Army chief, General VK Singh. The report was commissioned to defame Gen VK Singh and punish him for daring to cross swords with the
Government while in service and later joining the anti-corruption movement specifically targeting the Congress and its First Family. It has been lying around for more than six months — neither the Ministry of Defence nor the Prime Minister’s Office has acted on it, not on account of good sense dawning in South Block but because the cockamamie ‘findings’ will fail to stand the most casual judicial scrutiny. Just how absurd the allegations are is borne out by the bizarre claim that he tried to bring down the National Conference Government headed by Omar Abdullah by paying one of the Ministers `1.19 crore. The Congress should know that even a municipality councillor wouldn’t switch allegiance for that kind of money.
Yet the report has been leaked, some would say it has been planted, in obliging sections of the media eager to collaborate with the
Congress in its heinous slur-and-slander campaigns, raising a storm, even if its impact is restricted to the chattering classes. The timing of the leak, or ‘plant’ if you prefer, cannot be missed: It comes five days after Gen VK Singh appeared on the same dais as Narendra Modi at the ex-servicemen’s rally in Rewari. The mammoth turnout at that rally in Haryana, a State that boasts of the most privileged son-in-law of the country as one of its biggest landlords, has no doubt unnerved the Congress. So it unleashes another missile at Modi, this time one that bounces off Gen VK Singh — slander, defame and discredit the General and some of the muck will stick on to the man threatening to end Family Raj.
The timing is crucial for another reason: The brouhaha over what is essentially a repeat St Kitts trick has helped drown strident denunciation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s nuclear liability fraud on the nation in his unseemly haste to sign a big ticket deal with the US firm Westinghouse when he visits Washington, DC, this month. Manmohan Singh, we must remember, is no accidental politician, nor is he averse to the idea of collaborating with the Palace in plotting dirty tricks if they serve a dual purpose. The malicious attack on Gen VK Singh is designed to not only serve a political purpose as far as the Congress and the Palace are concerned, it also aims to take the heat off him in his yet another sell-out to the Americans at the expense of India’s national and strategic interest. The first purpose may or may not be served; in fact, it is likely to fail and miserably so. Sadly, the second purpose seems to have been served. look at the ease with which outrage over the nuclear liability fraud has been swamped and smothered by manufactured media debate on a cooked up ‘inquiry’ report that smears the impeccable credentials of an upright soldier. In which other democracy would the Prime Minister have escaped scrutiny and punishment for his appalling misdeeds with such amazing easeIJ
(The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi)