Bihar: Cooperative federalism in tatters?

 By Vivekanand Jha*

Is cooperative federalism in tatters in Bihar and elsewhere in the country? The question assumes significance today when on the one hand, Nitish Kumar- Tejashwi Yadav-led government was seeking the Vote of Confidence in the Bihar Assembly, on the other hand, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in conjunction with the Enforcement Directorate(ED) was conducting a series of raids in Bihar as well as in Gurugram in connection with land-for- jobs scam and IRCTC scams allegedly involving the newly anointed deputy Chief Minister  Tejashwi’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leaders.

The five RJD leaders subjected to the raids by CBI were: MLC and treasurer of the RJD Sunil Singh, former MLC Subodh Rai, Rajya Sabha MPs Asfaq Karim and Fayyaz Ahmed, and former MLA Abu Dujana. The raids purportedly were conducted by the CBI in collaboration with paramilitary forces that continued since early morning at almost twenty-five places. They were conducted at the residence and offices of Sunil Singh, the chairman of Bihar State Cooperative Marketing Union, the former Personal Assistant of Tejashwi’s mother and former Chief Minister Rabri Devi, who questioned the timings of such raids coinciding with the Vote of Confidence of the new government in the State Assembly.

The raids also began with full gusto in the Urban Cube Mall, in Sector 72, Gurugram, purportedly owned by Tejashwi Yadav, which is under construction by the White Land Builder. In fact, the trace of the money brought about by the ‘land-for-job scam’ was found to be channelised into the construction of a huge mall in Gurugram. The lead for this raid accrued from Bhola Yadav’s arrest by the CBI, who used to be the Officer on Special Duty of RJD Supremo and former CM Laloo Yadav when the latter was the Union Railway Minister.

This apart, the raid was conducted at the premise of Pankaj Mishra, a close confidante of Hemant Soren, Jharkhand, in connection with a  ‘mining scam’.

The raids had their reverberations in different parts of India, including Telangana’s capital Hyderabad. However, the intent of the raids notwithstanding, its timings did raise eyebrows: The new government, even though formed on the basis of purported political expediency, nonetheless enjoyed the support of a majority of MLAs. The BJP staged a walkout when the poll was conducted in the State Assembly today. The alliance secured 160 votes to comfortably sail through. Nitish government enjoys the support of 164 members including that of JD(U), RJD, Congress, Hindustani Awam Morcha ( HAM), Communist Party of India Marxist Leninist, Communist Party of India (CPI), AIMIM and an independent. The Bihar Assembly Speaker from the BJP, Vijay Kumar Sinha, quit ahead of the floor test. 

But the timing of raids allegedly to embarrass Bihar’s ruling coalition partner, the RJD, had its subtle message embedded in it: how Nitish Kumar, who had sacrificed his alliance with Laloo in 2017 on the ground of corruption, in the volte-face, sewing another alliance with the same RJD whose leaders are neck deep in corruption! 

Speaking on the occasion of the confidence vote, Tejaswi Yadav said, “If the man facing corruption joins the Bharatiya Janata Party, he overnight turns into King Harishchandra, whereas those in our parties are outright designated as ‘Bhrashtachari‘ (corrupt)”.

Nitish, on the other hand, scathingly targeted Ramchandra Prasad Singh, the man he claimed to have elevated to the presidentship of his party, the Janata Dal-United (JDU), who he claimed proved to be a saboteur.

The point made by Tejashwi Yadav, though merits attention: “You conducted raids in the past too, in 2017, but what was the result of the same? A big nought. Even the raids conducted today will end up as another fiasco”.

The BJP’s detractors ask that irrespective of the subjectivity of raids conducted today, how could the timings of raids coincide with the Confidence Vote of the new government? Why this raid could not be conducted before or after the Vote of Confidence? weren’t such raids intimidating tactics to cower down the RJD legislators?

So are the raids conducted in the states ruled by the BJP’s Opposition parties, meant to terrorise them by the weapon of coercion? Can these raids, as they are palpably seen by the Opposition, succeed in browbeating Nitish into submission – into confining him within Bihar so that his prime ministerial ambitions stands punctured at the altar of such raids?

In a larger scenario, the question doing rounds is whether the BJP government at the Centre applying subtle and coercive tactics to silence the voice of the Opposition. The questioning of Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia by different law enforcement agencies and the raids in Telengana to embroil the ruling Telugu Rashtra Samithi MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha under the liquor scam, too have raised hackles. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, her son Rahul Gandhi, son-in-law Robert Vadra, her close confidante and former Union Minister P. Chidambaram, and his son Kartik Chidambaram are all facing serious charges of fraud and corruption and summoned by the enforcement agencies.

The Opposition parties are crying foul and claiming the situation are reminiscent of emergency years when Indira Gandhi had sought to crush the Opposition by imposing all sorts of coercion. The question thus returns to whether cooperative federalism has lost its Constitutional sanctity with the besieging of State apparatchiks at the behest of the Union government.

However, in a recently published article in a newspaper, BJP leader Sudesh Verma strongly defended the raids against influential politicians and wrote: “While those being investigated may grudge and try to create an impression of political vendetta, people are with [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi. They want to see action from a Prime Minister who had said he would not spare anyone.” Verma, who is in charge of BJP’s media relations department, stated, “The message is loud and clear that the Government means business and would not spare the guilty.” In yet another article, Verma claimed that it would be a “travesty of justice if the CBI raids against Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia, and others are taken as an act of political vendetta by Modi government.” He claimed that every time such a raid is conducted against any politician, the same argument of political vendetta is pushed forward to demonstrate one’s innocence. “It may help create good optics and gloss over the truth, but cannot help escape the law,” he argued. According to Verma, although slow, the law is inching closer.

The question though being raised is whether only the Opposition leaders be the target of such raids. After all, the rulers should not be biased and remain fair to all!

(With inputs from Global Bihari bureau)

*Vivekanand Jha is an author, academician and public intellectual.