Parrikar's RS speech on AgustaWestland delivered precious little
After several days of threatening that Union defence minister, Manohar Parrikar, would come out with dramatic revelations in Rajya Sabha on the AgustaWestland chopper scam, all that the government was able to marshal by way of disclosure about the involvement of the "invisible hand" remained invisible.
The long, often fiercely contested, speech of Parrikar in the Rajya Sabha has remained at best a damp squib. This is a pointer to the hazard of raising expectations and thereafter not being able to fulfil them. But then this is a territory that is not unfamiliar with the Narendra Modi regime.
A day after the prime minister berated his ministers for not being very active on social media, all that Parrikar had to show after his speech were two tweets. They were just platitudes:
At various stages, despite specific directions to the contrary, acquisition process was influenced to make Agusta the only eligible bidder.
— Manohar Parrikar (@manoharparrikar) May 4, 2016
The people need to know who instigated, who supported & who benefitted from the Augusta deal.
— Manohar Parrikar (@manoharparrikar) May 4, 2016
I do not think anyone, least of all those who are being accused of having received bribes or kickbacks, will dispute even a syllable of the defence minister's assertions. After all, AK Antony, who presided over the deal as defence minister in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime declared: "It is proved beyond doubt there is corruption. All legal hurdles are over, you have to act... take action against takers whoever they may be..."
So was the short duration discussion moved by Bhupender Yadav, Subramanian Swamy and five other BJP members of the Upper House a case of much ado about nothing? Did the discussion and the pre-advertised speech of the minister add substantially to anything what was already known?
The AgustaWestland deal has been grabbing headlines since 2013 when news broke that the CEO of the Italian helicopter maker and its parent company Finmeccanica, Giuseppe Orsi, was arrested. The UPA regime put the brakes on the procurement of the choppers and initiated action.
 |
| The Modi government has let loose a volley of fusillades against the Congress leadership. |
The Modi government has accused the UPA regime of stifling and delaying investigations by citing procedural issues. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has further alleged - something which Parrikar alluded to on Wednesday - that a mysterious fire in the defence ministry destroyed all files except one - the one which the defence minister flashed for all to see.
Parrikar said that the fire broke out within days of the Modi government assuming office. The manner in which he referred to the incident made it clear that he was saying that it was manmade and not accidental. Why has no action been taken? What would have been the findings of a probe if one was ordered?
Since Modi became the prime minister, investigations by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and enforcement directorate (ED) have continued but have not succeeded in establishing a clear money trail. By available accounts, investigations within India are more or less over - barring interrogation of the accused - and now any possible prosecution will depend on evidence unearthed from abroad as hope for securing convictions. Have the investigative agencies not done their job properly or have they failed to find evidence?
After having faded away from public limelight, the AgustaWestland scam staged a comeback when the Milan appeals court on April 7 overturned a previous ruling and sentenced Orsi to four-and-a-half years in prison for international corruption.
It also found another official guilty of colluding to direct a plan aimed at paying tens of millions of dollars to Indian officials to win the Rs 3,565-crore contract to sell 12 helicopters. Orsi and his former colleague, Bruno Spagnolini, who later became CEO of AgustaWestland, were also directed by the Milan court to pay 7.5 million euros ($8.5 million), equivalent to what the court estimated as the amount of bribe paid.
Parts of the judgment began to be reported and this added grist to the mill. Besides naming the former Indian Air Force (IAF) chief SP Tyagi as the recipient of the monies paid, the judgment does not say anything very substantial. All that could be said at this stage was repeated by Parrikar and his party colleagues including the "star" of the show - Subramanian Swamy.
Hereafter, one narrative of the AgustaWestland scam will be the one on investigations, prosecution and convictions (if any). This will, for the moment, do little beyond raising decibel levels in a political debate. But the political narrative of the AgustaWestland swindle is what will be more riveting.
By letting loose a volley of fusillades against the Congress leadership - read Sonia Gandhi - the BJP has risked whatever cooperation it could have received from the party for carrying out legislative business in the Upper House beyond the routine and the most necessary.
The government better unearth evidence to establish who the bribe takers were. Mere insinuations will not help. Next year in April, we will mark 30 years of the Bofors controversy. Every political leader needs to factor in the degree of immunity in the society to defence scams.
Back in the 1980s, sheer supposition and allegation that former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had received kickbacks was sufficient to unseat him. Today in India, parties will have to legally debar leaders - Lalu Prasad Yadav cannot contest polls though for different reasons - for allegations to have any real impact. Keeping the atmosphere charged up will hardly help either the BJP or the Congress. The government has to move beyond allegations and the Congress needs to stop seeking sympathy if it wishes to stage a comeback.
At the moment, the only benefit which the BJP has secured is that the revival of the AgustaWestland scam will make the formation of an anti-BJP opposition front slightly more difficult. As Wednesday's debate demonstrated, non-BJP parties are not going to rush to the defence of the Congress. But this will hardly secure an advantage for the government in the running of the House.