Lalit Modi controversy: Time for PM to clean up mess

R JagannathanFirstpost.com

The Lalit Modi affair, which has embarrassed the Modi government and the BJP for shining the torch on the controversial former IPL Czar’s close ties to two political heavyweights - External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje – has many lessons for the government.Luckily for the central government, barring the Congress and the Janata Dal (United), no other opposition party seems too keen to indulge in anti-Modi (the PM, not the fugitive) rhetoric. This means the government will be able to brazen it out till the dust settles. However, the Prime Minister should use this opportunity to clean up the government’s act and nip future problems before they surface.

First, it is obvious that even ministers as senior as Sushma Swaraj have been unable – or unwilling – to understand conflict of interest issues. While Swaraj may have helped Lalit Modi to get his travel documents from the UK government purely out of humanitarian considerations, surely she could not have been unaware of the fact that her spouse and daughter had connections to him. When a person you have friendly links to asks you for an official favour, the first thing to do is recuse yourself from his problem and ask someone else to handle it so that no fingers can be pointed at you. Swaraj’s basic failure was this.

The Prime Minister must thus put in place rules for his ministers and bureaucrats so that when there is a conflict of interest involved, they must either be disclosed or they must distance themselves from these decisions. A key superior should be informed about these conflicts of interest so that he/she can intervene and obtain other counsel before a final decision is taken. This will protect both the government and the person involved.

Second, the real corruption issues are in the states, not Delhi (the centre). The Swaraj affair will blow over, but the real political vulnerabilities for the BJP may lie in Vasundhara Raje’s long-term links to Lalit Modi. Among other things, the Raje government appears to have signed an MoU with the same Portuguese hospital that treated Lalit Modi’s wife for cancer. While even this case may not go anywhere without proof of a quid pro quo, for the Prime Minister this shows up a future vulnerability. He may be running a tight ship in Delhi relatively free from scandal, but the same cannot be said for states run by the BJP.

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R Jagannathan

Editor-in-Chief|Web18

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In Madhya Pradesh, for example, Shivraj Singh Chauhan is trying to quell the Vyapam admissions and recruitment storm. It could blow up just around 2018, when the state goes to the polls. Fingers are being pointed in so many directions that few people believe the Madhya Pradesh BJP government will emerge untainted from it.

For the Prime Minister, the message is this: no matter what he does in Delhi, his party will be vulnerable in the states. While scams are not specific to BJP-ruled states, in a scenario where Narendra Modi is seen as a threat by every rival political party, it is what happens in the BJP that will be seen as a big scam happening in Modi’s watch. Scams in opposition-ruled states will be dismissed as Modi’s efforts to destabilise them. (Look how Mamata Banerjee has managed to put the Saradha scam behind her by shrieking about it and working out a degree of political bonhomie with Modi). But any scam in BJP-ruled states will be treated as a Modi scam. Rahul Gandhi has already dubbed the Lalit Modi-Swaraj controversy as Modigate in the hope that people will link Narendra Modi with it, not Lalit Modi or Vasundhara Raje or Sushma Swaraj.

Clearly, the Prime Minister will have to talk to his state Chief Ministers and put them on guard.

Third, in the wake of the Lalit Modi controversy, there have been murmurs that the story was probably leaked by some insider. Since the rivalry of Arun Jaitley and Swaraj is well-known, nasty conclusions have been drawn on who might be behind it all. Jaitley did well to back Swaraj in public, but for the Prime Minister this cannot be the end of the matter.

Given intra-party political rivalries, between Sangh loyalists and Modi loyalists, and between other second-run leaders seeking a larger role, the Prime Minister will have to manage these damaging internal squabbles without endangering the credibility of his government. The answer is not more surveillance, but more empowerment of his ministers. This will help improve decision-making, and also remedy the widespread perception that not a leaf moves without Modi’s say-so.

Fourth, the Prime Minister must also take a direct interest in cleaning up India cricket. Nobody could have missed the sheer number of names surfacing in the Lalit Modi affair – and how most of them are linked to the power struggles in the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The board is infested with politicians as it is the richest cricket board in the world; politicians like to be where the money is. Sharad Pawar of the NCP is a key power player in the Mumbai Cricket Association, and he has been a strong backer of Lalit Modi. Both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah were bosses of the Gujarat Cricket Association before politics took them to Delhi. Lalit Modi himself is a power in the Rajasthan Cricket Association. N Srinivasan, till recently BCCI boss, is said to have strong links to Andhra politicians, where his cement plants are based, and equable ties to the DMK in Tamil Nadu. Jyotiraditya Scindia is chief of the MP Cricket Association. Rajiv Shukla (Congress) is the current IPL Commissioner. Farooq Abdullah (National Conference) heads the J&K Cricket Association and Arun Jaitley is the patron saint of the not-so-saintly Delhi District Cricket Association.

When IPL became a huge cash gusher for BCCI, Lalit Modi’s prime role in it came under sustained attack as other cricket-politicians ganged up. Many of the cases against Lalit Modi emerged from the BCCI’s concerted attack on him. Arun Jaitley and P Chidambaram were key detractors. In September 2013, according to this report, “the BCCI's disciplinary committee, manned by Arun Jaitley and Jyotiraditya Scindia, found Modi guilty on eight counts, including financial irregularities, misconduct, indiscipline and "actions detrimental to the interest of the BCCI".

Chidambaram had a dust-up with Lalit Modi in 2009 when, as home minister in UPA, he refused to give the IPL security as the Lok Sabha elections were due. He asked Lalit to shift IPL dates, but Lalit simply moved the tournament to South Africa and carried on. Lalit clearly rubbed too many people the wrong way by his cockiness. In yesterday’s interview to India Today TV channel, Lalit blamed Chidambaram for setting the dogs after him.

The point for the Prime Minister to note is that BCCI’s money power is drawing politicians to it like bees to honey. And its internal power struggles are also, indirectly, impacting national politics now. He has to defang the BCCI by getting the politician out of it. Not an easy task, but cutting the BCCI down to size in some way, maybe by helping create a rival league at the national level, would help.

Fifth, the PM should now be in no doubt that his pre-eminence in national politics is his greatest vulnerability – and strength. It is helping former foes (Nitish and Lalu being prime examples) to bond and gang up against him, and ruining his development agenda. But he probably knows this anyway. An interesting thing has happened during the current Sushma Swaraj crisis. While the Congress is going hell for leather targeting the government,  most regional parties are staying clear. This means Modi’s enemies can be isolated by judicious use of his office’s powers and covert promises or threats against them. In the remaining four years of his tenure, this power is going to be critical to get his legislative agenda through, and also to govern effectively at the centre.

In India’s crab-bring-down-crab political environment, dividing the opposition, through fair means or foul, seems to be the only way to rule. The Gandhi family used this to great effect. Modi will have to do the same.

The writer is editor-in-chief, digital and publishing, Network18 Group.