India's first family comes out
fighting By Siddharth
Srivastava
NEW DELHI - A disconcerting
number of corruption scandals has rocked the
Congress-led government headed by Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh. The latest allegations are
miniscule when compared to the scale of earlier
purported embezzlements related to the coal,
telecom spectrum or the Commonwealth Games scams,
but can get no closer to the establishment.
Arvind Kejriwal, a social activist who has
been leading a high-profile campaign against
corruption over the recent months, has thrown the
spotlight on businessman Robert Vadra, who is
connected to the first family of Indian politics
through marriage to Priyanka Gandhi, daughter of
Sonia Gandhi, the all-powerful Congress party
chief.
In his latest avatar, Kejriwal has
decided to enter politics, launching an
independent party to fight elections, and marking the
occasion by accusing
Vadra of corruption. Vadra denied the claims.
Kejriwal alleged that Vadra was involved
in real estate deals that smacked of favoritism
and crony capitalism. Vadra responded by releasing
a statement, saying: "I am a private law abiding
citizen who has been engaged in business over the
last 21 years. The allegations leveled against me
are utterly false, entirely baseless and
defamatory.''
Vadra has also chose social
networking websites to retort. In one such
assertion he referred to Kejriwal's
anti-corruption activists as "mango people in a
banana republic,'' a testimonial that has not
exactly endeared him to sections of the
hyperactive young Internet-savvy population of
India.
Nothing has been proven against
Vadra in the courts, and so far Kejriwal has
refused to take recourse to legal actions, saying
that the process will be cumbersome and
investigations will be biased as they will be
handled by government agencies. He has called for
the setting up of an independent special
investigation team, instead. A public interest
litigation or PIL, however, was filed on the issue
on Thursday at the Allahabad High Court that has
served notice to New Delhi.
Kejriwal has
also accused property developer DLF orchestrating
the transfer of prime properties to Vadra, at
throwaway prices in exchange of extensive land
banks in areas of Congress party-ruled Haryana and
Delhi. DLF dismissed the allegations as a "bunch
of lies''.
The quick and massive returns
due to India's rapid urbanization have spawned
multiple overnight millionaires who have grown
rich on speculation across the country. Land
prices in prime areas such as Delhi, Gurgaon and
Mumbai are among the most expensive in the world.
As in the handling of India's natural resources,
allegations swarm that governments, politicians
and bureaucrats tinker with land use and
conversion laws for personal gain.
Following the accusations, the Congress
party, at the instance of Sonia, has come out
strongly in support of Vadra, accusing Kejriwal of
mudslinging to achieve narrow political ends.
Finance minister P Chidambaram has spoken in
Vadra's defense.
Sonia, in the past, has
usually sought to distance herself and her party
from persons accused of being corrupt, whether it
is former foreign minister Natwar Singh, telecom
minister A Raja or Suresh Kalmadi in the scandal
over the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Few in
India have access to the level of support that
Vadra can expect. But few operate at his level of
power and privilege. A retinue of armed guards and
pilot vehicles guard him, since his family
connection means he has been extended the highest
security status. He is among the handful of
dignitaries, including the president and the prime
minister of India, who by protocol is not required
to be frisked at Indian airports.
Politically, Vadra has limited himself to
accompanying brother-in-law Rahul Gandhi, who is
widely seen as the Congress party's future prime
ministerial candidate, and Priyanka in their
electoral campaigns, but has shown few signs of
being averse to the limelight. In an impromptu TV
interview during campaign for Uttar Pradesh
assembly elections in March, he said that he could
one day get into active politics, a matter that
was quickly dismissed by his wife.
The
Gandhi family has faced tough periods in the past
such as dealing with the Bofors gun corruption
scandal of the 1980s, when several Indian
politicians, including then-prime minister Rajiv
Gandhi, were accused of receiving kickbacks. With
Vadra in Kejriwal's sights, he needs a clinical
defense. The people of India are watching closely.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New
Delhi-based journalist. He can be reached at
sidsri@yahoo.com
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