Yeddy gone (hopefully).....now what about the Reddy brothers???

What a dirty and embarassing story this is turning out to be for the BJP. With Yeddy cocking a snook at the central party leadership and refusing to go even after having been specifically told to do so, there is no doubt that the party has suffered a huge body blow in its campaign against the Congress on corruption. Even if Yeddy does go now (and no one can be sure of that), it will leave the BJP in no position to take a high moral ground on corruption. On the contrary, it now faces new charges – of having a weak central leadership and a fractious one at that. The party that taunted the Congress for corruption is now facing corruption charges of its own. The party that taunted the Congress for a weak PM is now facing similar charges against its own central leadership. The shoe is truly on the other foot now....

And even after Yeddy has gone, the question of the Reddy brothers – the real moneybags – remains. There has been no comment from the BJP on the fate of these three brothers (of whom two are minsters) and their close family friend Srimamulu (also a minister). The four of them have slogged over the last 10-12 years to get the BJP to power. It must now be very difficult for the BJP to throw them out. And here’s the further complication. There is a slanging match going on between Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj on who is responsible for the rise of these corrupt brothers. Clearly, Sushma was the beneficiary of the clout of the Reddy brothers during her 1999 campaign against Sonia Gandhi in the Bellary Lok Sabha seat. She may have lost then, but she didn’t forget their help. In fact, some believe that they are like “adopted sons” to Sushma Swaraj. But Sushma has her scores to settle with Arun Jaitley. She alleges that she was never in favor of two brothers being in the same cabinet (Janardhana Reddy is the Minister of Tourism and infrastructure and Karunakara Reddy is the Revenue Minister). But it was Arun Jaitley who got them both in. Whoever it was who was responsible for giving them this prominence, the party shouldn’t be fighting internally. What is important now is that the mess be cleaned up and the brothers be thrown out of the party. Can the party do that? I seriously doubt that.....

The Yeddy episode also brought out another embarassing habit of the BJP. That it attacks those who attack it. The party first attacked the Times Now news channel for the “scoop” it had carried out. Blaming it for the leaked report. Now, while I understand that the party is bound to be angry at the leak, it should realize that there are enough leaks in all state governments and at the Center; all feeding stories to the media. It is not that media has to struggle to get its hands on such scoops. The reality is that the leaks choose the media outlet they want to give the story to. The BJP has itself benefitted in the past when such leaks have surfaced against the Congress. At those times, Ravi Shankar Prasad has “complimented” Times Now and called it an “expose”. Now it cannot sue the same channel. Rather, the BJP should investigate its own administration. Whatever the reasons for the leak, it hardly speaks well for a national party to be seen as trying to muzzle the press.

The party then attacked Justice Santosh Hegde. Now, the current political environment is such that no matter what Justice Hegde writes – even blatant lies – the people in the country are going to believe him 100%. In this case of course, Justice Hegde has backed up his work with tons of research and investigation. What the BJP should not have done is challenge Justice Hegde’s intentions. That’s a huge mistake to make in politics. Then there were charges made by Justice Hegde that his phone was being tapped. And of some politicians coming home to discuss the report (euphemism for threatening him). The judiciary in this country is held in high esteem – even though everyone knows that it is corrupt itself. The large scale hatred that people in this country have is towards politicians.....and they are willing to ignore the corruption in the judiciary as long as it helps to get to the politicians. Besides, Justice Hegde simply isn’t the types who anyone would hold as corrupt. Or politically motivated. Very bad mistake indeed.

The party then attacked the Congress for the indictment of its own MP, Anil Lad. Now honestly, who even cares for Anil Lad? And if he is involved, let him be sued. But by directing its attack at Lad, the BJP again found itself on a weak wicket. It was relatively easy for the Congress to point out that Lad was not holding any constitutional authority. What could he resign from? The Congress was not demanding the resignation of the Reddy brothers as MPs and MLAs.....they were only demanding that they not remain ministers any longer. It’s the exact same that happened with Raja, Kalmadi, Chavan et al. They all continue to remain MPs and MLAs but they have had to give up their constitutional positions. So Lad should and would be investigated and charged. The stakes however are much larger for the BJP – It has lost a CM, and it will most likely lose four more ministers in this dirty saga. Again, one gets a sense that the party could have handled the issue much better.

The Yeddy episode just proves what I have been saying for long. There is corruption in every single political party in India. I am neither pro-Congress nor pro-BJP. Nor anti them. What I cannot stand is the attempt.....indeed audacity of the BJP to pin corruption on Congress, when it fully knows that its own state governments are all equally corrupt. Of course many people in this country believe that the Congress is more corrupt than the BJP – given the sheer higher number of cases against the Congress. But people should remember – the Congress has ruled for the most time – and hence it has the most to hide. Give the BJP the same amount of time, and their record will be no different.

But corruption in politics should not depress us. Or make us angry. It should make us determined to fight the problems that exist in the system. I doubt if any of us wants to give up our democracy. What we need is a bunch of sane people to sit down and clean up the root causes of corruption in our politics. Our response must not be to throw out all politicians (and risk throwing out democracy in the process), but to encourage better people to join politics. We must remove the problems that lead to corruption and even good people becoming corrupt after joining politics. We must clean up election funding. We must acknowledge how much it costs to fight elections and we must develop our rules accordingly. Currently, the Election Commission limit on spending per candidate is so arbitrarily low that even honest candidates have to spend “in black”. We’ve seen in the past (when we had the License Raj in the 1960s and 70s) that it is bad laws that cause corruption. Artificially low limits are bound to cause corruption. We also need to allow more open funding of elections. Maybe corporates should be given tax breaks on their election spends. Maybe the state should fund elections. That’s what happens in many European countries.....

My request to the many readers who comment on my posts is that they should not complain all the time. If we go by what some of them write, it would appear that they want India to give up on democracy itself. We cannot do that. We must try and reform our democracy, not give up on it. I particularly cannot stand cribbers – those who shout and rant at everything – but have no solutions except “jail all of them”. These people harm the country by leading it to the precipice from where only a military rule or a dictatorship looks feasible. My sincere request to them is to start contributing positively with good ideas. My sincere request also is to allow a different point of view from theirs to exist. They may not like my views, but they cannot hold me back from writing what my views are. If they do believe in democracy, then they must believe in allowing different views to emerge.

The real truth is that the BJP has disgraced itself. But why only the BJP? All political parties have disgraced themselves by being proven to be corrupt. Apart from the Congress and the BJP, the Left has been exposed in WB, BSP in UP, the RJD in Bihar and the DMK in TN. Earlier, the AIADMK in TN and the SP in UP were shown to be corrupt. It’s a matter of time before every party gets exposed. In my mind, the Lokpal Bill is not a solution. It’s just an external “balm” to temporarily curb the symptoms of corruption. It won’t cure and remove the root causes that cause corruption.....