The Bharatiya Janata Party's palpable aura of self-congratulation for persuading Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse to resign after revelations of multiple irregularities surfaced against him may be misplaced. The transparent objective of this drama - including the two senior party leaders who flanked Mr Khadse at the press conference - was to highlight to the public at large the contrast between the supposed high-mindedness of the BJP and the squalid reputation of corruption in the predecessor regime, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance. The party also expects to score some powerful political points because the minister in question was the state unit's Other Backward Caste (OBC) representative and, therefore, considered inviolable in the complex caste equations that inform traditional Indian politicking.
Securing the resignation of Mr Khadse, a senior minister and one of the state government's most politically powerful, is unquestionably the right decision. But beyond the showboating, that move begs the uncomfortable question that the Aam Aadmi Party has raised: why is the state government not taking the next logical step of registering first information reports (FIRs) against Mr Khadse? Contrary to popular perception, an FIR is not an outright accusation of a crime but the request for an investigation. There is little doubt from available facts that Mr Khadse's actions demand deeper enquiry. The patent impropriety in the deal in Pune that valued land bought by his wife and son-in-law at roughly 10 per cent its market price was compounded by the fact that Mr Khadse changed the laws to require owners to be compensated at (higher) market rates only after this deal. Then, reported records of phone-calls to Dawood Ibrahim, one of India's most wanted terrorists and well-known proxy realtor in Mumbai, surely deserve some explanation. And finally, it is odd that a close aide of Mr Khadse should be arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau for demanding a bribe in a land deal even as the minister under whom he works walks free. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has sought to control the fallout by virtuously announcing an inquiry into the allegations by a retired high court judge. This is disingenuous and inadequate.
To be sure, the reluctance to subject politicians (and their relatives) to objective scrutiny by law enforcement agencies when evidence of law-breaking or misdemeanours occur is not an affliction that is confined to the BJP. It is worth noting that reports of Robert Vadra's alleged irregularities over land deals have not progressed beyond accusations aired in the press. It is puzzling why, if leaks about questionable properties in London are in fact accurate, there is no movement in the investigation of it by the relevant authorities, even now that the Congress has left office; at the very least, Mr Vadra should already have been properly questioned. Thus, if the party is serious about burnishing its credentials of honesty, it needs to go the distance in examining such alleged transgressions in a genuinely impartial manner.
