NEW DELHI: A growing political scandal involving suitcases of money, doctored evidence, taped telephone calls and questionable alibis has swept over Prime Minister P.V.Narasimha Rao and the governing Congress Party, paralyzing the Government and foreign, Mr, Rao to scramble around the country in search of support.
‘Three weeks ago, at a dramatic. And chaotic news conference, Harshad Mehta, once a highflying stockbroker in Bombay and now the central figure in the country’s securities scandal, announced that he had lugged a suitcase stuffed with $237,000 in small bills in to the Prime Minister’s residence in late 1991. A day later, he said, he shipped over a second bag with $134,000 more to round out the sum at 10 million rupees.
Since then, Mr. Rao and his party have been offering alibis to show that he could not have been present when Mr. Mchia said he was delivering the loot, alibis that have been met with considerable skepticism.
Yet, unlike the corruption scandals that arc remaking the political systems in Italy and Japan, India’s political system itself has not been challenged. Indeed, India’s political establishment — both the governing party and the ‘Opposition —appears determined to hang on to its own style of politics, one fueled by babes and payoffs. Not only do members of Parliament privately admit to taking money illegally, they express no discontent with the system.
“Everybody takes money,” said a senior minister in Mr, Rao’s Government, who spoke only on the assurance that he would not be quoted by name. “I even had to take money. Without money, no one can win a seat,”’ in Parliament. No More Cash Lal Krishna Advani, the leader of the Hindu revivalist Bharatiya Janata Party, the largest opposition force in Parliament, denounced the Prime Minister for corruption, and then announced that his party members would no longer take donations in cash. From now on, he said, only checks would he accept.
“Nobody talks about what is wrong with the political system here,” said M.1.Khan, the editor of Political Events, the country’s leading political journal. “These politicians in the past have tried to get election funds from government funds instead of secret contributions. But that didn’t pass in Parliament. Everybody is taking money. That is the system here.”
Instead, the newspapers and living rooms of this sweltering, gossipy capital have been filled with speculation over the size of a suitcase needed to hold many millions of rupees—in 100’s and 50°s — or over why it took the Prime Minister’s office 72 hours to offer its version of events.
There are other problems with the official denial as well as the length of time it look to make one.
Mr. Rao’s office produced logs of his visits on Nov.4, 1991, the day Mr. Mehta said he delivered the money, showing that the Prime Minister was meeting Jagmohan, a former governor of Kashmir and member of the upper house who is known by one name, Mr. Jagmohan, however, who evidently had not been consulted on the alibi, said he had not showed up at the Prime Minister’s that day. Everyone here began wondering how the parliamentarian’s signature appeared on the visitor’s log.
The Prime Minister’s office then asserted that a delegation from Pakistan had been with Mr. Rao at 10:45 A.M., the time Mr. Mehta asserted he was trundling the cash into the drawing room. Again, the Prime Minister’s office was dismayed to hear from the Pakistani delegates that they did not get to see Mr. Rao until after 11:00. A Missing Driver And then there was the mysterious case of the driver from the Ministry of External Affairs, the man who was said to have picked up the second suitcase from Mr. Mehia. The driver, it seems, has been transferred to the Indian consulate in New York and is not available for questioning. The Indian Government, meanwhile, appears to have ground to a near halt.
“As far as I can see, all they’re doing is protecting Rao,” said a European diplomat, “Besides that, the Government isn’t functioning very much.”
Mr. Rao, evidently feeling the heat of Mr. Mehta’s accusations, has been touring the country drumming up support.
“This is no longer a burning issue,” he said in his home state of Andra Pradesh. “I categorically deny with a capital “C’ the entire episode.”
- Nayar, a senior editor at The Economic Times, the country’s leading business journal, said that despite all the charges and the apparent confusion in the Prime Minister’s office, Mr. Rao is likely to survive.
“I have a feeling that what Harshad Mehta is saying is true, although [think the worst is over,” Mr. Nayar said. “I think that if there are no further damaging revelations, he should be able to get past the problem.”
But K. Subrahmanyam, a columnist for The Economic Times, lamented both the securities and banking scandal laid at Mr, Mehta’s door and the charges of corruption laid to the political system. “Today in Japan and Italy there are moves to cleanse their politics,” he wrote on Tuesday. “In India there is no such move. The bank scam is one of the symptoms of our diseased political system. One wonders when this country will witness the kind of reform moves as have been initiated in Japan and Italy.”
Article extracted from this publication >> July 16, 1993
