The Opposition is Unable to Mobilise Against Weaponisation of Central Agencies

Opposition leaders miraculously stop facing corruption charges and scrutiny when they ally with the current regime.

(This piece was originally published on 4 January and is being republished after the ED on Saturday summoned Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal for questioning [for the fourth time] in the excise policy case.)

Two opinions are both delusional and farcical when it comes to the recent actions of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against opposition leaders.

The first comes from die-hard supporters of the current government who say that the ED is completely independent and impartial when it goes after chief ministers like Arvind Kejriwal and Hemant Soren.

The second comes from die-hard supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party and says that the ED is after Kejriwal because Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scared of his growing popularity. Between these two farcical positions lies a genuine puzzle.

Why are opposition parties and leaders failing to mobilise the masses against the seeming excesses of institutions like the ED, the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation), and the IT (Income Tax) Department?

Quite clearly, several surveys across India, including those conducted by CVoter, show that significantly large sections of Indians think that the ED and other agencies have been weaponised by the current regime to target opposition leaders. Yet, they don’t express any visible or even latent anger against these actions.

No Objective Observer Can Deny the Weaponisation of Investigative Agencies

What are the facts? Recently, the chief minister of Jharkhand, Hemant Soren, refused to appear before the ED despite the agency giving him one “last chance” to do so. Speculation is rife about the ED arresting him sometime soon on charges of alleged corruption and money laundering. Similarly, the AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal has refused to appear before the ED despite a third summons to answer questions related to the so-called Delhi liquor scam for which top AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh are in jail. The Delhi CM has dubbed the summons “illegal”.

While these two are in the news in recent times, another opposition leader, Abhijeet Bannerjee, nephew and heir apparent of TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, has been tangled with the ED for a long time. Many other opposition leaders have been in the crosshairs of the ED and other agencies. Most face charges of corruption and money laundering.

There is another set of facts. Opposition leaders miraculously stop facing corruption charges and ED scrutiny when they ally with the current regime. The three most prominent examples come from Maharashtra: Ajit Pawar, Praful Patel, and Chagan Bhujbal. The latter has actually spent considerable time in prison on charges of corruption. All three faced charges by agencies that have been left hanging after they allied with the ruling regime.

Then there are “frenemies” like the BJD and the YSR Congress. They are fiercely opposed to the BJP on the political battlefield. Yet, when it comes to the passage of many contentious Bills in the Rajya Sabha, they have bailed out the government by either voting in favour or abstaining. Somehow, the ED and other agencies have not found any top BJD or YSR leaders worth investigating.

The author doesn’t blame BJP supporters for supporting the acts of the agencies. But no objective observer can dispute the fact that investigative agencies have been weaponised. The fact is: that previous regimes too have weaponised the agencies to target their opponents. So, compulsive critics of Narendra Modi do appear a tad hypocritical when they claim he has “discovered” the ED, CBI, and IT as weapons.

So, Why are the Indian People Not Angry?

The baffling question is: as mentioned earlier, why is the ordinary Indian not upset and angry with the targeting of opposition leaders by investigative agencies? If there was genuine anger, it would have been reflected in the regular surveys that organisations like CVoter and CSDS conduct, on the streets and from ground reports. That anger is absent.

The author thinks there are two reasons for this. The first is the amazing ability of Narendra Modi to keep Indians convinced that he is committed to rooting out corruption, particularly of the type practised by leaders of “dynastic” parties. The author doesn’t know how deeply committed Modi is to this “mission”, but the public perception is that he indeed is. And perceptions override all else in politics.

There is a second, more important reason. This is the age of social media. Sure, the medium is filled with misinformation and propaganda. But Indians now also have access to verifiable information. They know Lalu Prasad Yadav is a convicted criminal. They know Om Prakash Chauthala is a convicted criminal. Both are former chief ministers convicted of corruption. In Jharkhand, Madhu Koda is another former chief minister convicted of corruption. The late J Jayalalitha was “de facto” convicted of corruption. The list is long and getting lengthier by the day.

Then there is the sight of tons of cash being found in houses of “opposition” leaders. Just recently, Indians were treated to the spectacle of more than Rs 350 crores being found and counted in premises belonging to Congress Rajya Sabha MP Dhiraj Sahoo. Raids have also discovered crores of cash in the premises of senior TMC leaders. Again, the list is long and tens of millions of Indians watch all this on WhatsApp forwards.

To top it all, an increasingly large number of Indians realise that courts are often denying bail to opposition leaders who have been arrested. A prime example is former deputy chief minister of Delhi and top AAP leader Manish Sisodia who has been denied bail even by the Supreme Court. One section thinks all this is because the ruling regime has cowed down and subverted the judiciary. A majority of Indians think that is nonsense.

Is there a way out of this morass? The author is not very optimistic. Politics is so polarised that a common meeting ground keeps becoming more and more elusive. And India is not the only democracy to suffer. A lot of Americans still love to hector and lecture India about “due process of law”. The ugly reality is, that there is now ample credible evidence that even the vaunted Federal Bureau of Investigation has been weaponised to fight political and cultural wars. Reminds one of that Hindi proverb, Is hamam mein sabhi…

(Sutanu Guru is the Executive Director of the CVoter Foundation. This is an opinion article and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)