Prime Minister'sprerogative and compulsion of coalition politics are the two excuses the UPA is never tired of repeating, whenever it is cornered on the question of its tainted ministers in the cabinet. The UPA invokes the names of senior NDA leaders facing trial on Ramjanmabhoomi campaign to defend its devilish dance with criminals. It is clear that chargesheets on political agitations fall into a different category. Trade union strikes, freedom struggle, fight against emergency and other political agitations cannot be clubbed with corruption, extortion and murder. This distinction has to be explicitly defined so that the political discourse on public morality enjoys a level of credible lexicon. UPA in general and the Left parties in particular are pastmasters in obfuscation and political double-talk. The Left parties have a long tradition of bypassing the judiciary to withdraw pending criminal cases against their leaders and even declaring them heroes giving them awards and cash benefits from state exchequer, whenever they are in power in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura. In these states this has become a routine practice, with the Congress also following the Left example.
This discussion has become relevant again, following the conviction of the JMM leader Shibu Soren in a murder charge. After the removal of Soren from the union cabinet, the other tainted ministers, whose list the NDA has submitted to the President APJ Abdul Kalam include, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Jaiprakash Yadav, MAA Fatmi and Mohammad Taslimuddin. Dr Manmohan Singh is keeping his cabinet afloat through induction of these members and often, it is claimed that, it'sthe Prime Ministers? prerogative. Soren and Yadav were reinducted in the cabinet recently at the insistence of Sonia Gandhi.
Last week an aggressive opposition succeeded in putting the government on the mat over the issue in Parliament, in the wake of Soren'sresignation. In fact, this has been one of the major issues that has been tarnishing the Manmohan cabinet'simage from its inception. That a cabinet minister should be above reproach and of impeachable integrity is a widely accepted norm in a democracy world over. On this to foist prime ministerial prerogative is an unprecedented proposition gained currency under the UPA regime. These are men accused of serious crimes, ranging from looting the public money with unconcealed disdain to kidnapping and murder. To claim that this is a price paid to keep the government is facetious. This along with a series of actions and inactions undermining the national polity has severely dented the credibility and legitimacy of this government.
Soren'sconviction has once again confirmed the infamous bribery charges that rocked the nation during P.V. Narasimha Rao'sprime ministership, of which Dr Singh was the Finance Minister. It was then alleged that the Congress paid huge sums of money as bribe to JMM members of parliament including Soren to vote in its favour at the time of the January 1993 confidence vote. The Congress had always denied the allegation, but in the present case the dispute over sharing the bribe money is cited as a primary reason for the murder of Soren'sprivate secretary. But this is just one of the many charges against Soren.
The Congress has never been, thankfully, too boastful of taking a moral high ground. Only that under Sonia Gandhi, it has made grand standing a substitute for cohesive policy initiatives. That Soren was the first minister in the central cabinet to be convicted for murder and that he was projected and felicitated as some kind of messiah by the UPA, though there are many more similar charges pending against him speaks volumes about the political immorality flourishing under the UPA. Only a few months ago, the Congress was eager to instal him chief minister of Jharkhand, and it was with his active involvement that the UPA got the BJP government toppled there to foist another coalition led by an independent MLA. The UPA seems to believe that misusing the CBI, as in the case of Bofors and many other instances in the last two years, the tainted ministers will in the long run get exonerated. Dr Singh cannot escape the opprobrium of cravenly presiding over the most controversial team of ministers since independence. Perhaps, he has no choice, as he is the selected not the elected Prime Minister of India.
