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Monday November 9, 2009

Between power, glory and wealth

INDIA DIARY BY COOMI KAPOOR


Despite the scandals and the public outrage, it’s business as usual for some of the country’s dubious politicians.

ALMOST every day politicians give enough reason for ordinary people to believe that they are thugs.

Strong words? Yes.

But then, the ubiquitous common man invariably uses unprintable expletives to describe the entire tribe of politicians.

Unfortunately, the handful who still follow certain norms and scruples get abused vicariously for no fault of theirs, except that they are in a profession where the pursuit of power overrides all other considerations.

Two on-going investigations into two separate money-making scams involving two very different politicians have once again strengthened the popular impression that the so-called public servants are no better than highway robbers.

In both cases, the sums involved run into several million dollars.

Indeed, as a Mumbai newspaper commentated editorially, the two scams confirm the view that politics is the only business where anyone without any skills whatsoever and no investment of his own can ex­pect to amass huge wealth overnight.

For proof, consider the first politician under the scanner of the premier Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) who is said to have made in illicit transactions some US$400mil (RM1.36bil).

Thirty-eight-year-old Madhu Koda, presently a member of Parliament, is facing heat from the CBI, the Income Tax and the Enforcement Directorate for the Foreign Exchange Manage­ment Act in connection with the sale of mining rights and other favours to various parties on payment of huge bribes.

For two years between Sept 2006 and Aug 2008, when he was the chief minister of the mineral-rich State of Jharkhand, Koda parcelled out large chunks of land for mining of iron ore and other minerals to several businessmen. Or changed the land use in several other cases for monetary considerations.

In collusion with a couple of his associates, he ran a “cash-and-carry government,” selling licences and permits for monetary gain.

While the public exchequer lost tens of thousands of millions due to his largesse, Koda and his close associates enriched themselves immensely.

Investigations have uncovered the money trail to Dubai, Liberia, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, etc.

Some 70-odd bank accounts connected with Koda and his business partners were frozen by the investigators, while raids were conducted in Mumbai, Jamshedpur, Kolkata, Ranchi, etc.

Fearing arrest, Koda got himself admitted to a hospital on Monday, Nov 3, in Ranchi, Jharkhand.

A day later, CBI and income tax officials questioned him in the hospital, while the doctors shifted him to the general ward, saying that except for a minor blood pressure problem, he was in perfectly good health.

Now, anyone requiring confirmation that politics is the veritable gravy train for its practitioners to line their pockets should consider the career-graph of the youngest-ever chief minister of Jharkhand.

Until 1991, he was an unskilled labourer in a mining company. His luck turned when he joined the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, the mother organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

In 2000, he successfully contested the Jharkhand Assembly on the BJP ticket and was made the Panchayati Raj (local self-government) Minister in the BJP-led state government.

First reports of his corrupt activities surfaced at the time, with the result that the BJP denied him the ticket in the 2005 Assembly poll.

Nonetheless, Koda contested as an independent and won.

Again, he bargained with the BJP to be made the minister for Mines and Geology when the party fell short of the majority in the new Assembly by a few seats.

A few months later, the Congress Party and its then ally, the Rashtriya Janta Dal of Laloo Yadav, induced Koda to pull down the BJP government, offering him the crown of chief ministership in the new government.

In Sept 2006, Koda became the Chief Minister of Jharkhand and remained in the saddle until August 2008.

The second high-profile investigation pertains to the grant of cellular phone licences to a couple of handpicked parties by Telecom Minister A. Raja in the previous UPA government in early 2008 at 2001 rates.

Raja adopted an arbitrary first-come-first-served formula for the licenses.

Within weeks, these licences were sold by the favoured few to foreign parties at huge profits. By all accounts, the public exchequer was poorer by at least US$12bil (RM40.8bil).

Not only was the tendering process arbitrarily curtailed, Raja’s staff ensured that only the favoured few were able to apply while other applicants were either kept in the dark or physically prevented from submitting the bids.

The telecom scam was in the headlines long before the CBI investigation.

Indeed, there was speculation as to why the CBI was now allowed to inquire into the scam, since Raja was retained as the Telecom Minister in the UPA-II government as well.

Predictably, even in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, Raja continues to plead innocence, a claim trashed by his own colleagues.

However, no valid explanation was forthcoming as to how licences issued by him were sold immediately at profits running into billions of dollars, and why some of those profits should not have flowed into the national exchequer.

Being a nominee of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Raja is confident of retaining his ministerial post so long as he enjoys the trust of the DMK boss and Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi.

The prime minister has ignored opposition calls for his removal.

Both Raja and Koda are riding it out as the CBI examines their misdeeds. However, cynics insist that in spite of the investigations, neither politician’s career would suffer.

After all, the polity is teeming with those who had made tonnes of money by entirely wrongful means.

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