POLITICS-INDIA: Defence Minister Goes, But Govt. Still in Trouble

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Mar 16 2001 (IPS) - The resignation of George Fernandes, India’s defence minister, failed to bring respite to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s coalition, troubled by the exposure of shady defence deals.

After Fernandes dramatically announced Thursday night, that he was quitting, members of his Samata Party began pointing fingers at top bureaucrats in the powerful prime minister’s office, better known as the PMO.

The media Internet group Tehelka.com, which exposed the scandal, has named these officials in its revealing tapes.

Using hidden cameras, Tehelka journalists, posing as defence dealers, trapped senior defence officials, military officials and a key leader of the former defence minister’s party, offering to swing defence deals in return for a consideration.

On Friday, three Samata Party ministers — Nitish Kumar, Digvijay Singh and Sreenivas Prasad — too announced they were quitting because their demand for the removal of these bureaucrats was ignored.

The former defence minister’s party is demanding the removal of Brajesh Mishra, Principal Secretary to the prime minister and National Security Advisor, who is considered to be the second most powerful man in the government.

The other PMO bureaucrat is special secretary, N.K. Singh, who handles financial matters.

However, the Samata Party said that its 12 lawmakers would continue to back Vajpayee’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Kumar was the agriculture minister in the Vajpayee cabinet, while Digvijay Singh and Sreenivas Prasad were junior ministers.

Another key NDA partner, the regional Trinamul Congress, based in eastern border West Bengal state quit the coalition Thursday, with its leader Mamata Banerji resigning as railway minister.

The Trinamul Congress also withdrew support to the ruling coalition, which now has nine lawmakers less.

However, Vajpayee’s coalition still has 292 members against the simple majority of 272 needed to continue in office.

“We are not even thinking about the numbers,” Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Pramod Mahajan declared confidently.

But the main opposition Congress Party said it was neither satisfied with the defence minister’s resignation nor impressed by the NDA’s majority.

“This is not about numbers and the Vajpayee government itself should resign on moral grounds,” said Congress spokesman, Jaipal Reddy.

The scandal has led the Left parties and socialist groups to form a “secular, corruption-free” People’s Front. It is led by communist patriarch, Jyoti Basu, who recently stepped down as chief minister of West Bengal, after a record five successive terms in office.

The new grouping is similar to the now defunct United Front, which ruled India between the years 1996 and 1998.

Its constituents too are drawn from the United Front, who have teamed up with Congress lawmakers in stalling parliamentary work ever since the defence scandal broke.

The scandal affected the India visit of the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.

On Friday, the government had to call off Annan’s scheduled visit to parliament, because it could not secure an assurance from the opposition that the proceedings would not be disrupted.

There are fears that the Congress and the People’s Front could win over some disgruntled NDA allies to defeat the federal budget, which is due to be voted on in the current house session.

This would would have the same effect as defeating the government in a confidence motion.

The Vajpayee coalition first took office in March 1998, promising to provide a clean government and cashing in on the negative image of the Congress, tainted by various corruption scandals.

The most famous of these is the one involving a mid-1980s deal with Swedish arms maker Bofors.

Court hearings are still on in the Bofors bribey allegations, 15 years after the deal was first struck by then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The Bofors scandal was the main reason for the spectacular defeat of the Congress in general elections in the year 1989.

The most important catch in Tehelka’s expose was Bangaru Laxman, chief of Vajpayee’s own right-wing, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Laxman was shown on film, accepting cash in return for helping to promote a deal to buy non-existent equipment for the Indian army.

Jaya Jaitly, the chief of the former defence minister’s party and a close personal acquaintance of Fernandes, was also shown in the Tehelka video accepting money to help push the deal.

Other NDA allies Friday continued to mount pressure on Vajpayee to order a through probe into the affair. These include the most important ally — the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) of southern Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu.

Though the TDP, with 29 members in Parliament, has not joined the government, its ‘outside support’ has now become critical for the survival of the Vajpayee government.

Another coalition partner, the Janata Dal (United), which has six lawmakers, too had demanded Fernandes’ resignation.

The 17-month-old NDA government has been under fire for other deals relating to its policy of privatising profitable state enterprises.

Ajit Jogi, chief minister of eastern Chattisgarh state, has alleged that 250 million U.S. dollars was paid in kickbacks to officials in Vajpayee’s government by a private company, which acquired a majority stake in a large public sector aluminium company February.

These deals have dented Vajpayee’s well-cultivated image of an honest, elderly statesman. The premier was expected to make an attempt to salvage some of that image in a televised address over the national network Friday.