Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s efforts to deflect allegations that he ignored corruption under his watch as the president of the Delhi and District Cricket Association have revealed another truth about the Bharatiya Janata Party. As the Aam Aadami Party first levelled these charges against Jaitley on Thursday and BJP MP Kirti Azad amplified them at a press conference on Sunday, it has become clear that party president Amit Shah is losing his iron grip on the saffron party.
The first sign of this came on December 17, when the AAP tipped the BJP in turmoil by alleging that the DDCA had allowed several dishonest deals at a time it was headed by Jaitley. Before Jaitley became finance minister, he headed the capital’s cricket association for 13 years, until 2013.
Though it went unreported, the discussions among the BJP brass that followed the AAP’s press conference indicated that Shah – the man known for running the party with an iron hand ever since he became its president in July last year – is not able to enforce his authority quite as easily as he was able to do earlier.
Strategy is rejected
According to a senior BJP official, who requested anonymity, Jaitley suggested to Amit Shah that a high-profile cabinet colleague – and not an ordinary party leader or an inexperienced minister – should be pressed in service to counter the AAP’s charges in public.
Shah asked two very senior ministers to take on the task of defending Jaitley in public, but neither of them agreed, this official claimed.
As a consequence, Shah had to field Smriti Irani, the relatively inexperienced Human Resources Development Minister, to mount a counter attack on AAP. Though she did her job in a spirited manner, describing the charges as “blasphemous and preposterous campaign bordering on political hysteria”, the silence of senior ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet was not lost on the party insiders.
Lack of support
This was in marked contrast to the situation six months ago, when External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj got caught in another set of allegations involving favours showed to another former administrator, Lalit Modi. At that time, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh came out within hours to defend Swaraj. “We want to make it clear that whatever she [Sushma Swaraj] has done is right,” Singh had said soon after the controversy broke on June 14. “We justify it and the government completely stands by her.”
The weakening of Shah’s control over the party became even more glaring on Sunday when, despite strict orders from the party president to refrain from doing so, the BJP’s Darbhanga MP Kirti Azad went ahead with his press conference to make more allegations about the corruption in the DDCA during Jaitley's tenure. Azad did, however, refrain from mentioning the finance minister’s name.
“I am a big fan of the prime minister,” Azad said as he began the press conference, which was also attended by former cricketer Bishan Singh Bedi. “We are all with his [Narendra Modi’s] campaign against corruption. There is no personal animosity against anyone.”
The cricketer-turned-politician went on to release a video made by Wikileaks4India and Sun Star Hindi daily about the allegations.
Although Azad did not directly seek Jaitley’s resignation, he made it obvious by demanding that, apart from Central Bureau of Investigation, the matter should also be inquired into by the Enforcement Directorate. The directorate is a wing of the Ministry of Finance, and an investigation by it cannot be seen fair if Jaitley continues to hold the post.
That Shah has been on the back-foot ever since the BJP suffered a massive defeat in Bihar is not a secret. Party veterans, led by former deputy prime minister LK Advani, openly blamed him for the defeat, and there was talk of others also being discontented with his functioning. The failure of his two recent attempts to exercise his authority within the BJP is bound to strengthen the hands of his detractors in the party.
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The first sign of this came on December 17, when the AAP tipped the BJP in turmoil by alleging that the DDCA had allowed several dishonest deals at a time it was headed by Jaitley. Before Jaitley became finance minister, he headed the capital’s cricket association for 13 years, until 2013.
Though it went unreported, the discussions among the BJP brass that followed the AAP’s press conference indicated that Shah – the man known for running the party with an iron hand ever since he became its president in July last year – is not able to enforce his authority quite as easily as he was able to do earlier.
Strategy is rejected
According to a senior BJP official, who requested anonymity, Jaitley suggested to Amit Shah that a high-profile cabinet colleague – and not an ordinary party leader or an inexperienced minister – should be pressed in service to counter the AAP’s charges in public.
Shah asked two very senior ministers to take on the task of defending Jaitley in public, but neither of them agreed, this official claimed.
As a consequence, Shah had to field Smriti Irani, the relatively inexperienced Human Resources Development Minister, to mount a counter attack on AAP. Though she did her job in a spirited manner, describing the charges as “blasphemous and preposterous campaign bordering on political hysteria”, the silence of senior ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet was not lost on the party insiders.
Lack of support
This was in marked contrast to the situation six months ago, when External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj got caught in another set of allegations involving favours showed to another former administrator, Lalit Modi. At that time, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh came out within hours to defend Swaraj. “We want to make it clear that whatever she [Sushma Swaraj] has done is right,” Singh had said soon after the controversy broke on June 14. “We justify it and the government completely stands by her.”
The weakening of Shah’s control over the party became even more glaring on Sunday when, despite strict orders from the party president to refrain from doing so, the BJP’s Darbhanga MP Kirti Azad went ahead with his press conference to make more allegations about the corruption in the DDCA during Jaitley's tenure. Azad did, however, refrain from mentioning the finance minister’s name.
“I am a big fan of the prime minister,” Azad said as he began the press conference, which was also attended by former cricketer Bishan Singh Bedi. “We are all with his [Narendra Modi’s] campaign against corruption. There is no personal animosity against anyone.”
The cricketer-turned-politician went on to release a video made by Wikileaks4India and Sun Star Hindi daily about the allegations.
Although Azad did not directly seek Jaitley’s resignation, he made it obvious by demanding that, apart from Central Bureau of Investigation, the matter should also be inquired into by the Enforcement Directorate. The directorate is a wing of the Ministry of Finance, and an investigation by it cannot be seen fair if Jaitley continues to hold the post.
That Shah has been on the back-foot ever since the BJP suffered a massive defeat in Bihar is not a secret. Party veterans, led by former deputy prime minister LK Advani, openly blamed him for the defeat, and there was talk of others also being discontented with his functioning. The failure of his two recent attempts to exercise his authority within the BJP is bound to strengthen the hands of his detractors in the party.