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The strategy for the Congress would now be to question Modi’s silence on the alleged corruption in his government, even as it accuses him of lying to the people.
No sooner had CBI Special Judge O.P. Saini ruled that no criminal conspiracy could be established in the allocation of 2G spectrum by the Manmohan Singh government, than there was speculation in the Congress on what impact the verdict, had it come earlier, would have had on the Gujarat assembly elections. For, even in the run-up to the polls, BJP leaders had referred to the case to attack the Congress.
“Like the famous zero-loss theory in the 2G scam, which was rejected by the Supreme Court when it cancelled the licences, Kapil Sibal has come up with another zero theory saying Narendra Modi is not a real Hindu,” the prime minister had said while campaigning in Gujarat.
Soon after the verdict, Sibal, who was telecom minister in the United Progressive Alliance government, claimed that his stand on the spectrum allocation was vindicated. “Today it has been proved that my zero-loss claim was correct,” he said. “Not a single paisa was stolen.”
An emboldened Congress claimed moral victory and demanded an apology from Modi and his BJP colleagues for “conspiring” with former comptroller and auditor general Vinod Rai to create a false perception that the Manmohan Singh government was corrupt. Rai had concluded that the manner in which the 2G spectrum was allocated had caused a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer.
The UPA’s alleged wrongdoings became the centrepiece of the anti-corruption movement of activists Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal. More importantly, Modi used the allegations as a launchpad for his campaign for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. But, with the CBI court acquitting all 19 accused in the case, including DMK leaders Kanimozhi and A. Raja (who was telecom minister when the spectrum was allocated), the 2G millstone round the UPA neck has finally come off.
The damage, however, is done. In the 2014 elections, the Congress won just 44 seats—its worst ever tally in the Lok Sabha—while Modi, riding on the anti-corruption wave, handed the BJP its best-ever victory. Now, however, the Congress will project itself as the victim of a conspiracy undertaken to label it as corrupt.
The verdict’s main political implication, said Congress leader Anand Sharma, is that Modi and the BJP now stand exposed as conspirators. “The author of the CAG report leaked it,” said Sharma. “The beneficiary of the presumptive loss is the prime minister. And the person who vetted the procedure is the PM’s principal secretary [Nripendra Misra].”
Narendra Modi |PTI
The verdict has come as a morale booster for the Congress, as it prepares to take on the BJP in the assembly elections in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Mizoram and Meghalaya, and the Lok Sabha elections due next year. It is felt that the BJP’s principal weapon against the Congress, that of corruption charges, has been blunted, and that it will not be able to use it as effectively as it had in the past.
Asked about the political impact of the verdict, Congress leader Randeep Surjewala said, “They [the BJP] stand exposed. The matter is now in the people’s court. The Congress will definitely go to the people with the truth of the matter.”
The Congress Working Committee, the party’s highest decision-making body, has decided that the party should hold Modi and the BJP accountable for their “false propaganda”. “The three judgments pronounced by the CBI court are of enormous value due to the fact that they completely undermine and demolish seven years of slander and fabricated political propaganda circulated by the BJP,” the CWC said.
The strategy for the Congress would now be to question Modi’s silence on the alleged corruption in his government and in BJP-ruled states, even as it accuses the prime minister and his party of lying to the people, be it with regard to scams in the UPA or promises they had made before the 2014 elections.
As the new Congress president, Rahul Gandhi would want to change the political narrative by focusing on the perceived decline in the Modi government’s credibility. “Across the country, they [the people] are questioning Mr Modi on the economy,” he said at the CWC meeting. “They are questioning Mr Modi when he insults our ex-prime minister. So, there is a positive sentiment towards the Congress party.”
For its part, the BJP may have to redraft its anti-corruption rhetoric, or even look for other issues to attack the Congress. There are ongoing corruption cases involving the Congress—such as the coal allocation, National Herald and Commonwealth Games scam cases—but the BJP has been robbed of the extremely powerful 2G buzzword.
“It is not the end of the legal process, and one must not lose sight that the Supreme Court in its February 2012 judgment clearly and unequivocally found the process arbitrary,” BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli told THE WEEK. “Now the trial courts appear to have not examined the evidence in the correct perspective.” While the Modi government did not have a role in the Supreme Court-monitored trial, he said, it will have every role in the appeal against the CBI court verdict.
The reactions of Hazare and Kejriwal have been rather muted. While Hazare said he was “no one to judge the court’s verdict”, Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party questioned the Modi government’s sincerity in pursuing corruption cases. “If there was no activity in the case during the UPA tenure, what was Modiji’s compulsion that, during his tenure, the CBI could not even file an additional charge-sheet in the case?” asked AAP leader Ashutosh.
The ripples of the verdict are felt in Tamil Nadu, too. The DMK, which had drawn a blank in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, is hoping for a revival in its fortunes. The Congress may be a natural ally of the DMK, but the verdict means that it can no longer bully the regional party like it had in the past. In 2011, for instance, the Congress had used its national clout to pressure the DMK into allotting 63 seats to contest in the assembly polls. Now, however, Rahul is not in a position to drive a hard bargain. Also, the verdict means the DMK is no longer a political untouchable for the BJP.
Perhaps, mindful of this, Rahul and Manmohan were among the first to call up Kanimozhi after her acquittal in the case. She had spent six months in Tihar Jail before being granted bail. Dismissing speculation that DMK chief M. Karunanidhi was keeping his option open as regards to allying with the BJP, a Congress leader asked, “Can Karunanidhi forgive the people responsible for sending his daughter to jail?”
The Congress will surely hope not.
WITH LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN
