Prime Minister Modi's luck turns: Govt stares at institutional erosion

Recent developments related to the CBI have breathed a new life into the opposition

When the Narendra Modi government came to power, the prime minister with his boastful claim of a 56-inch chest seemed like a man-in-charge. He wanted his hold over the government to be total. Even his ministers were not allowed to appoint their personal staff without his clearance. Anyone who was associated with the previous government was kept out of key posts and trusted bureaucrats were shipped in – mostly from Gujarat.

A man who began with an election campaign sobriquet of Chhote Sardar, after Sardar Patel, had surpassed his icon by being elected the Prime Minister whereas Patel had only been a deputy prime minister. 

Suddenly the Republic of Fear so carefully put together over the past four and half years of authoritarian governance, seems to be turning into a house of cards. And those manning it, it turns out, are no supermen but mere mortals with some serious frailties.

The dirty linen of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), the Finance Ministry and even the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is on public display. They are riven by at least half a dozen internecine conflicts. 

As a result, crucial agencies have been stripped of the veneer of professionalism, neutrality and accountability – qualities that engender faith among citizens in the institutions of the State. An impression has gained ground that these institutions are manned by people who are either corrupt or are amenable to manipulation by their political masters.

CBI director Alok Verma has alleged before the Supreme Court that an extortion racket was being run by his Special Director, Rakesh Asthana, in lieu of compromised investigations. Eminent citizens have appealed to the Supreme Court to order a court-monitored inquiry into the controversial Rafale jet fighter purchase deal. The government seems divided between Gujarat and non-Gujarat bureaucrats (read, cronies vs. the rest) and a public impression has been created that officers with less than clean reputation are heading key institutions of the State.  

Even the Cabinet is not immune from such destructive rivalries. A senior minister’s assistant was apparently raided by the Income Tax authorities. The minister who is close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and projected as an alternative to Prime Minister Modi, cannot exactly be pleased with the attempt to tarnish his image.

Meanwhile, the midnight coup in the CBI apparently engineered in the PMO suggests that the government panicked in the face of the prospect of the agency acting against it. There is speculation that the CBI was about to take up investigations in the controversial Rafale deal. 

As a fallout of its midnight manoeuvre, the Modi government will not be able to use fear of the CBI and the ED to browbeat the opposition including Congress president Rahul Gandhi, whose brother-in-law, Robert Vadra has been a chink in the Gandhi family’s armour. It would be harder now for Modi and his party acolytes to prevent the coalescence of a grand alliance of the opposition in the make-or-break state of Uttar Pradesh for the 2019 general election.

The government’s actions have also invited unwelcome attention to several top functionaries of the Modi government, including those in the Prime Minister’s Office, doing irreparable harm to their public image. It seems unlikely as of now that those involved in the internal war in the premier institutions of the state will emerge unscathed as muck-raking unfolds before the public eye.

The haste with which the CBI director was sent on leave and the public interest litigation filed in the Supreme Court by former Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha along with eminent lawyer Prashant Bhushan, are likely to create the impression that the Modi government has something to hide in the Rafale deal. This is likely to create doubts about the government’s integrity in the public mind. This may lend further momentum to efforts by the Opposition to make the Rafale deal an election issue.

These developments will also tend to weaken the hold of the Modi government on the bureaucracy especially as the regime is at the fag end of its tenure. 

As a result of result of the flawed decision making by his government, a prime minister who wanted to control everything in the government with an iron fist, has had to hand over scrutiny of key government agencies to the Supreme Court.

The apex court has already made the government’s appointment of M Nageswar Rao as interim CBI director virtually infructuous, by stripping the incumbent of decision making powers, except on administrative matters. All his decisions since taking over are also being subjected to the court’s scrutiny. It has paved the way for reversing the large-scale and prima facie malicious transfers of CBI officers investigating Asthana by the interim director.

Further, by appointing a retired Supreme Court judge to oversee the CVC inquiry against Alok Verma, the CBI director sent on administrative leave by the government, with the injunction to complete the inquiry within two weeks, the apex court has also put a question mark on the integrity of the CVC. If on November 12 when the court meets next to hear the issue, it finds that the CVC inquiry has found nothing against Verma or that it seeks extension of time for the inquiry, nothing prevents it from reinstating him as the CBI Director. 

As yet the Supreme Court has not addressed the substantive legal question of whether the government had the authority to send CBI Director Verma on leave. Nor has it gone into the political sensitiveness of the issues that he was examining. 

Irrespective of the Supreme Court’s verdict the immediate political consequence of these developments is that they have breathed new life into the opposition political parties giving them several themes that could play out in the coming election.

Prime Minister Modi who had come to power claiming that people considered him “naseeb wala” or fortunate may learn that Lady Luck can be quite fickle.

The writer is a journalist based in Delhi. He tweets @bharatitis