Why Modi sarkar has no right to accuse Vadra till they book him
Let's first cut to April, 2014, when the political heat and dust generated in the ten-phase Lok Sabha elections was at its peak. At one point BJP's prime ministirial candidate Narendra Modi had justified raising the controversial land deals of Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra and the "millions he made in a short time", and said if the BJP won the elections, his government would allow the law to take its own course.
More than a year later, far from the law taking its own course, it has even failed to kickstart. Though the state governments of Haryana and Rajasthan, the two states where Vadra's allegedly dubious land deals were struck on a massive scale, have initiated probes, the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre is yet to initiate any investigation into them. Despite the absence of any clinching evidence or a probe by any central investigative agency, the BJP is fiercely raising the Vadra deals in Parliament to counter the Opposition attack on Union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
The BJP has hit out at Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh too. At least here a CBI inquiry has been ordered against Singh in June, 2015 over his alleged unexplained income of Rs 6.1 crore during the period 2009-11 when he was the minister of steel during the UPA government. However, not even an FIR has been registered against Vadra so far. Though the Centre could have launched probes by the Enforcement Directorate, Serious Fraud Investigation Office or the income-tax besides the CBI and CVC.
Of course, the Haryana and Rajasthan governments, albeit belatedly, have initiated probes in the Vadra deals. After nearly seven long months of coming to power in Haryana, the ML Khattar government of the BJP set up a commission of inquiry in May, 2015, headed by Justice SN Dhingra, to investigate into alleged irregularities in land deals in Sector 83, Gurgaon involving Vadra's firm, Skylight Hospitality.
As far as the Rajasthan government is concerned, it has got nowhere close to Vadra. In early 2014 and in May 2015, it asked the district collectors of Jodhpur, Barmer and Bikaner to collate information on Vadra's real estate dealings. On July 21, just a day before the commencement of Parliament's monsoon session, the Bikaner police arrested a "kingpin" involved in Vadra's dubious land deals. It could not have been more coincidental.
The Centre however has come nowhere in the picture so far despite senior party leader Subramanian Swamy's plea to President Pranab Mukherjee to direct the CVC and CBI for an immediate probe into six new companies floated by Vadra. In his letter to the President, Swamy alleged that Vadra's six new companies were involved in illegal transfer of 23 acres of prime land near the Rashtrapati Bhavan to real estate major DLF.
In the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls again, Union water resources minister Uma Bharati had gone to the extent of declaring that Vadra was involved in "several falsehoods" and after the election if BJP comes to power, he would surely be jailed.
But jail is obviously a far cry. Without even completing any formality, BJP ministers and MPs are raising the alleged Vadra deals inside and outside the Parliament. Their anti-Vadra slogans would have sounded credible had the Centre delivered on their pre-Lok Sabha poll assurances and promises in the matter. At the moment, they sound hollow and political.