Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Apr 3: “The law takes its own course,” so goes the saying, but a new condition has been attached lately, “till the accused join the BJP.”
A quick look into the past of many of the prominent leaders of the non-BJP parties who crossed over to the BJP ever since the Narendra Modi government came to power in 2014, justify the opposition leaders’ allegations that the BJP was like a “washing machine” that cleans all the dirt the opposition leaders were smeared with facing probing actions from the central agencies.
Barring the recent ones, since 2014, as many as 25 prominent politicians facing action from Central agencies for alleged corruption have crossed over to the BJP and in 23 cases either the investigations have been stopped, or the investigating agencies filed closure reports or the cases kept pending indefinitely.
The leaders who switched over to the BJP cut across party lines: 10 are from the Congress; four each from NCP and Shiv Sena, three from TMC; two from TDP; and one each from SP and YSRCP.
In 23 of these cases, their political move has translated into reprieve, three of the cases have been closed; 20 others remain stalled or in cold storage — the investigative agency’s action, after the switch, has been, in fact, inaction. Six of the politicians on this list moved to the BJP this year alone, weeks before the general elections.
This is in sharp contrast to what happens when the accused is in the Opposition, 95 per cent of prominent politicians that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took action against after 2014, when the NDA came to power, were from the Opposition.
Not that this is new — it’s the scale that is unprecedented. In 2009, in the Congress-led UPA years, the CBI had changed course in the corruption cases against BSP’s Mayawati and SP’s Mulayam Singh Yadav when the two leaders were being courted by the ruling UPA. It was perhaps expected since the UPA government was on a shaky majority, not as comfortable as the Modi government is now.
The latest set of findings show that a bulk of the Central action was focused on Maharashtra through the political turbulence of 2022 and 2023 in the state. In 2022, the Eknath Shinde faction broke away from the Shiv Sena and formed a new government with the BJP. A year later, the Ajit Pawar faction broke away from the NCP and joined the ruling NDA coalition.
Records show that cases faced by two top leaders of the NCP faction, Ajit Pawar and Praful Patel, were subsequently closed. In all, 12 prominent politicians from Maharashtra are on the list of 25, eleven of whom switched to the BJP in 2022 or later, including four each from NCP, Shiv Sena and Congress.
In the case of Ajit Pawar, the Mumbai Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) filed a closure report in October 2020 when he was part of the previous MVA government, sought to reopen the case once the BJP returned to power, and closed the file again in March this year after he joined the NDA. The ED’s case against Pawar, based on the EOW action, has since been rendered infructuous.
Then there are cases that remain open but just in name, with no notable progress. For instance, the CBI has been waiting since 2019 for sanction from the Lok Sabha Speaker to prosecute West Bengal Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari – he was an MP at the time of the alleged offence — in the Narada sting operation case. Adhikari switched from TMC to BJP in 2020.
The cases against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan are also stuck. Biswa faced CBI questioning and raids in 2014, in the Saradha chit fund scam, but the case against him has not moved since 2015 when he joined the BJP. Chavan joined the BJP this year even as a stay by the Supreme Court is in place over proceedings by the CBI and ED in the Adarsh Housing case.
In just two of the 25 cases — of former Congress MP Jyoti Mirdha and former TDP MP YS Chowdary — there is no evidence of a let-up by the ED even after the two leaders joined the BJP. At least, not yet.
A CBI official said all the agency’s probes were “based on evidence.” “As and when evidence is found, appropriate action is taken.” When asked about the cases where the agency seems to have changed course once the accused has changed parties, the official said: “In some cases, action is delayed for various reasons. But they are open.”
An ED official said its cases are based on FIRs by other agencies. “If other agencies close their case, it becomes difficult for ED to proceed further. Yet, we have filed charge-sheets in many such cases. In cases where the probe is on, action will be taken when required,” the official said, when asked about the flip-flops.
From closing the case to putting it in cold storage — this is how the ED, CBI and IT Department changed course once the accused changed their party and moved over to the ruling BJP. Several instances work like eye-openers how quickly the investigating agencies changed tracks once the leader under probe switched over to the BJP.
The former minister during the UPA regime Praful Patel of the Nationalist Congress Party provide a glaring example. Mr Patel joined the BJP-led Mahayuti government in Maharashtra with the Ajit Pawar-led split in the NCP. The former civil aviation minister was being probed by CBI and ED for alleged corruption in the purchase of 111 aircraft by Air India as well as in the AI-Indian Airlines merger during the UPA regime. The allegations involved ceding of profitable routes to foreign airlines, opening of training institutes with foreign investment, and ties with lobbyist Deepak Talwar. The FIR was filed by the CBI in May, 2017, but after Patel switched over to the NDA in June, 2023, the CBI has filed a closure report in the case last month.
In several other instances like that of the Assam chief minister Sarma, the investigation have not been pursued since the accused joined the BJP but the cases kept open dangling like Damocles’ sword in case the person again dared to desert the saffron party.
Former Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee was an example of how the threat can return if the accused ditched the BJP. A long time leader of the Trinamool Congress, Mr Chatterjee, a key accused in the Narada sting operation case and has been questioned by central agencies in the Saradha chit fund case too, was booked by the CBI in April, 2017. He resigned as the Kolkata mayor in November, 2018 and joined the BJP in August 2019 and the investigation was shelved. On being denied ticket to contest the last State Assembly elections, he left the BJP in March 2021 and was promptly arrested by the CBI a month later reviving the old Narada case, though is currently out on bail.