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Why has the BJP’s response to the Amit Shah case been so disproportionate?

Why has the BJP reacted so violently to the charges against Amit Shah, Gujarat’s minister of state for

home affairs? When the CBI arrests a BJP minister you would expect some level of indignation for public consumption and some rhetoric about the falseness of the

charges and the bias of the CBI. That’s how every party plays these things and how the BJP has behaved in the past when such situations have arisen.

 

   But the BJP’s response to the Amit Shah case has been so disproportionate that it has surprised many people. The party took the unprecedented step of boycotting the Prime Minister’s lunch for Opposition leaders on the eve of the parliamentary session to protest the charges against Shah. A press conference at BJP headquarters was attended by nearly every senior leader of the party including both Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj.

 

   A little later, BJP President Nitin Gadkari joined the attack on behalf of Shah. And each evening, BJP spokesmen went on television to launch vicious attacks on the Congress on a variety of unrelated issues from Bofors to the 1984 riots to the failure to hang Afzal Guru.

 

   Even when Amit Shah disgraced the party’s record of political propriety by hiding and evading the CBI – a bizarre thing for a home minister to do in any circumstances – BJP spokesmen refused to be embarrassed and continued with their high-decibel defence.

 

   Over subsequent days, after Shah finally gave himself up to the CBI and was moved to Sabarmati Jail for a relatively relaxed spell of detention, the CBI came up with revelation after revelation. Secret tapes showed Shah’s favourite policemen conspiring to obstruct justice on his behalf. Builders appeared on TV to record how Shah and his cops had extorted money from them and openly admitted to bumping off Sohrabbudin Sheikh. One of Shah’s senior police officers offered to turn state evidence and to spill the beans about Shah’s activities. Witnesses came forward to identify the house where Sohrabbudin’s wife was illegally confined before being murdered in cold blood.

 

   When you consider how much noise the BJP has made about relatively minor charges against the likes of Laloo Yadav to say nothing of Shibu Soren’s continuance in office despite criminal charges, it is surprising that the BJP should be so vocal in Amit Shah’s defence. The more sensible course would have been to issue pro-forma condemnations of the CBI before changing the subject. Instead, the BJP has identified itself so completely with Shah that should the charges be proved in court (and we are a long way from a conviction as yet) then this could well be a spectacular own goal for the party.

 

   The only way to explain the BJP’s somewhat unwise aggression on behalf of a man accused of extremely unsavoury activities is to recognise the special place that Gujarat occupies in the structure of the BJP today.

 

   There is, first of all, the safety factor. Gujarat is the safest state for the BJP. We look at Gujarat’s politics through the prism of Narendra Modi but long before Modi became chief minister Gujarat had returned BJP government after BJP government at every election since the mid-1980s. An attack on the Gujarat BJP is, therefore, an attack on the party’s sanctum sanctorum.

 

   Safe states offer certain advantages to leaders from other states as well. L.K. Advani is an MP from Gujarat. Given how little time Advani spends in his constituency, it is fair to say that one reason he keeps winning his seat is because of the efforts exerted on his behalf by the Gujarat BJP. Arun Jaitley has only ever been elected to Parliament as a Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat. Though Sushma Swaraj now represents Madhya Pradesh, she too has been elected to Parliament from Gujarat in her time.

 

 "How can anyone respect Narendra Modi if it is shown that during his tenure as home minister, the Gujarat Police functioned as extortionists and executioners?"

   Then, there is the money factor. Even parties that are run by largely honest people (and there’s no doubt that the likes of Advani and Jaitley are politicians with impeccable personal integrity) need money to function. When a party is in its sixth year in Opposition at the Centre, with no immediate prospect of returning to power in a while, it turns to state governments for funds. Rajasthan is no longer a cash cow for the BJP; in Karnataka, the money is made by such individuals as the Reddy brothers rather than the party itself; and Madhya Pradesh is not the sort of state that yields big bucks.

 

   Gujarat, on the other hand, is awash in money. Not only are Gujarat’s industrialists undergoing a resurgence after years of being overshadowed by businessmen from other states but nearly every nationally prominent industrial house has a strong presence in Gujarat. Indeed, businessmen love the state government so much that the likes of Anil Ambani have openly called for Narendra Modi to be Prime Minister and Ratan Tata has said that any business house without a Gujarat presence is being stupid.

 

   All this makes Gujarat the BJP’s principal source of funds for its national activities. If the central leadership in Delhi annoys Narendra Modi or fails to be sufficiently supportive of his government, he can simply turn off the tap that waters the BJP’s national arena. This gives Modi a disproportionate importance in the affairs of the party.

 

   Then, there is the argument of consistency. For most of the last decade, Gujarat has been something of an international embarrassment for the BJP. Such countries as the United States will not grant a visa to Narendra Modi and his global standing is only a few grades above some Serbian war criminal.

 

   The BJP reckons that this is unfair. It believes that Modi’s role in the Gujarat riots has been unfairly caricatured and that the chief minister has been needlessly vilified. Because this position is not easy to substantiate, the BJP falls back on two other defences. One, that everybody does it – which is why the 1984 riots crop up again and again in BJP rhetoric. And two, that Modi runs an honest and efficient government.

 

   The problem with the Sohrabbudin case is that it strikes at the heart of the second claim. The CBI’s case is that Amit Shah – one of Modi’s most trusted lieutenants – corrupted the state police force so that hand-picked officers extorted money from businessmen and worked closely with gangsters. When these gangsters (and the CBI says that Sohrabbudin was one such gangster) stepped out of line, they were murdered in cold blood by Shah’s pet policemen. These murders were later described as encounters in which the police acted in self-defence and the gangsters were painted as terrorists out to assassinate Narendra Modi.

 

   It is not my case that these charges are valid. The CBI will have to prove them in a court of law and we all know that cases involving politicians rarely result in convictions in Indian courts. But it is easy to see why the charges worry the BJP. If the CBI can win its case at the court of public opinion by bombarding us with video-taped stings and confessional statements then that will be the end of Narendra Modi’s reputation as an honest politician who runs a clean government.

 

   For, not only is Amit Shah close to Modi, but the chief minister himself is Gujarat’s home minister. (Shah is minister of state.) How can anyone respect Narendra Modi if it is shown that during his tenure as home minister, the Gujarat Police functioned as extortionists and executioners?

 

   More than anyone else, Narendra Modi recognises that the Amit Shah case poses an even graver threat to his reputation than the allegations about his role in the Gujarat riots. Once people stop seeing him as an honest and efficient chief minister, that will be the end of the Modi legend.


 

CommentsComments

  • ronniek 11 Aug 2010

    "It is reprehensible that instead of highlighting the development of Gujarat, the media is going on and on with the stale gujarat riots, which was the spontaneous outburst to the gruesome Godhra train carnage " quoted.
    its also ironic that the centre is more interested in nailing the perperators of an alleged encounter of a terrorist(not gangster) but not pursuing the executors of Godhra massacre (which infact is never menioned anywhere as if it never happened) .This is selective journalism.

  • ronniek 10 Aug 2010

    Dear Veer
    i would really like you to do an article on Progress made by gujrat in last 10 years vis-a-vis the rest of the country.

  • somnath karunakaran 03 Aug 2010

    Hi Vir.. I commend you on your impeccable analysis, and true whatever points you have made does stand out..but why is the CBI in a tearing hurry in this matter, surely there a myriad of issues which is waiting for their attention like the CWG mess which if they were to investigate many politicians would be exposed, so athis juncture this I think is just to divert the common mans attention.. nothing else.

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