When he is being grilled by the CBI this week, do not blame Pawan Kumar Bansal if for a moment he regrets not having been a minister in the Andhra Pradesh cabinet.
Because, if past record is anything to go by, the tainted former Union Railways minister would have happily continued in office if he was one of Kiran Kumar Reddy’s ministers. And the world wouldn’t have been one goat less !
The irony is not lost on anyone. Both Home minister Sabitha Indra Reddy and Roads and Buildings minister Dharmana Prasada Rao figure as accused in two different chargesheets filed in connection with Jaganmohan Reddy’s disproportionate assets case. Yet after the initial public offering of `I will resign’, both happily continue in office. It is as if in Andhra Pradesh, daag acche hain.
The Congress thinks nothing of adopting two different yardsticks in New Delhi and Hyderabad. That is because unlike at the Centre, where both Bansal and Ashwani Kumar are political lightweights, Sabitha Indra Reddy and Prasada Rao can inflict damage on an already weak Kiran Kumar Reddy government.
Rao, in particular, lords over Srikakulam district in north coastal Andhra Pradesh and has insured himself politically by having one of his brothers in the YSR Congress. The late YSR called Sabitha Indra Reddy his younger sister and it won’t take much time for Sabitha to do political business with the `nephew’, if Congress shows her the door.
The Karnataka results have left the Congress in a quandary, unable to fathom whether the electorate voted against corruption or not. The dilemma is because while Karnataka may have dumped BS Yeddyurappa in this election, it did not reward the BJP for having taken a stand against corruption.
It even elected candidates of the BSR Congress, a party patronised by tainted mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy, lodged at the moment in Hyderabad jail. It also elected other mining barons like Anil Lad of the Congress and Anand Singh of the BJP, both rapped on the knuckles by the Supreme Court for violating mining guidelines that led to their leases being cancelled.
So is there political merit in dropping Sabitha and Prasada Rao, if the voters aren’t going to think much of it at election time? That is one of the arguments put forth in the Congress. In a nutshell, that is the problem with the party. It looks at everything from the prism of 2014 and is blind to what is right and what is wrong.
Sabitha and Prasada Rao have company in K Parthasarathy, who was sentenced to two months in jail for a FERA violation case last year. Yet the Congress thinks nothing of letting a convicted person continue in the cabinet and what’s worse, holding the education portfolio. Clearly, no lessons learnt here.
The message out of the EVMs in Karnataka is that while corruption was a no-no, a bigger no-no was to a display of a I-give-a-damn-to-what-you-think attitude by those in power. The voters displayed impatience with political instability, infighting and a governance deficit. By now, the voters understand that politicians are, with a few exceptions, a dishonest tribe and Indian elections are a game that involves big money.
In many cases, they aren’t averse to accepting money from different political parties to cast a vote in their favour and therefore are willing to turn a blind eye to a few misdemeanors. But display arrogance and politically incorrect behaviour towards the public and the world will come crashing on you with a pile of votes.
Which is more than likely to happen in Andhra Pradesh.
Sabitha Indra Reddy has been summoned by the special CBI court to appear before it on 7 June. Just imagine the ignominy of a Home minister, who lords over the police in the state, facing the wrath of the CBI lawyer who will press charges against her on the basis that her actions as the minister for mines in the YSR cabinet were against the interests of the state.
But in a reflection of the Congress party’s disdain for public opinion, the same government will provide Sabitha with legal assistance to fight the charges against her. In short, you and I are engaging a lawyer for Sabitha Indra Reddy.
Karnataka holds an important lesson for the Congress in Andhra Pradesh. As the party in power, it has a lot to worry about.
The fact that it has allowed individuals named in chargesheets to continue as ministers is evidence that the Congress runs the state as if it is its fiefdom, without a care for ethics in public life.
Plus the perception that Kiran Kumar Reddy is a one-man cabinet who runs his own show, while his ministers indulge in politicking and carry tales about him to Delhi, isn’t likely to do the Congress any good. Just like the BJP in Karnataka, the Congress in Andhra is a terribly divided house, with no one sure how many of them will continue to remain in the party once elections are announced.
The Congress will do well to purge the ministry of tainted elements immediately and apologise for the mistakes it has committed. Better late than never.
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