The Pre-Election Swoop Is the Central Agencies’ Latest Trick Against Opposition Leaders

The Supreme Court in 2013 had famously described the CBI as a ‘caged parrot’. Under Narendra Modi, the parrot has morphed into a pack hound, accompanied by the Enforcement Directorate and the Income Tax department.

Under the new playbook of central investigating agencies, the overriding priority is for operations against opposition parties. The best sleuths have been assigned for this purpose. There has been institutionalised coordination and interaction among the agencies and the ruling party officials at the central and local levels.

The latter gives the right input to the agencies and also promptly amplifies their operations with supporting public statements. During every raid, arrest or interrogation by the agencies, the BJP leaders provide cover and even boast prior knowledge of impending raids.

Some of these statements also show that leaders from the BJP and its allies enjoy a sense of impunity. Earlier this year, the Madhya Pradesh panchayat minister Mahendra Singh Sisodia warned leaders of the Congress party to join the BJP or “face the bulldozer“. Cosy in the protection he now has after joining the NDA, Janata Dal (Secular) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy publicly threatened Karnataka deputy chief minister D.K. Shivkumar: “Be ready to go to Tihar jail.”

If Arvind Kejriwal is jailed in the excise policy case, it will prove to be a game changer. If the chief minister of a state is thrown in jail for unsubstantiated charges, no opposition chief minister is safe. Later, it could be the turn of Mamata Banerjee or M.K. Stalin. Or any senior opposition leader like Akhilesh Yadav or Uddhav Thackeray. The ED could rake up charges against any leader at the behest of its political bosses.

This was what Kejriwal emphasised when he famously said: “Give me control of the ED just for one day, all senior BJP leaders will be in jail.” He was trying to prove that BJP leaders also have accumulated sins which could used by a rival regime.

Mamata Banerjee raised certain pertinent questions: Why did the ED not search a single BJP leader’s house? “You intend to raid every opposition leader’s residence before the Lok Sabha elections? You may plan and come up with fake evidence. We have original (genuine) evidence like pen drives against you. But we are not releasing it now.”

At an earlier media briefing, she said the BJP was playing a ‘dirty game’ by way of ED raids on opposition leaders across the country in time for the Lok Sabha polls. “I want to ask them whether there was a single such raid on a BJP leader?” she asked, adding that these tactics will not help the BJP win votes.

The other dangerous trend has been the perceptible signs of cloak-and-dagger style operation by the ED, apparently at the behest of political bosses. Coercing an accused person’s former aides or minor players into submission and planting evidence are standard tricks in such operations.

Take the case of a courier who confessed to handing over Rs 508 crore to Chhatisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel. Look at the haste with which the prime minister, ably backed by BJP’s star spokesperson Smriti Irani, took up the issue and charged the Congress with using ‘hawala money’ for elections. This shows the kind of coordination that is in place.

Similar is the recent claims made by an aide of AAP minister Raaj Kumar Anand. During the ED’s interrogation, the aide allegedly revealed that the minister had sent Rs 7 crore to China through the hawala route.

If these allegations are true, they should be dealt with seriously. But such claims by the agencies, which are increasingly being politicised, call for further verifiable evidence.

Kapil Sibal had recently revealed that the ED during the interrogation of Senthil Balaji, a former Tamil Nadu minister, gave him a curious option: join the BJP or face trial. This kind of politicisation leads to doubts about the credibility of agencies.

NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar asked two years ago: What was the need for different agencies to raid the same house five times? He was referring to the raids on former Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik. Of late, the ED, CBI and IT department have become more brash and ruthless. 

When previous ED chief Sanjay Kumar Mishra finally left, he could claim credit for two solid achievements: scaring and silencing Mayawati and splitting the Shiv Sena and NCP in Maharashtra, thus giving birth to the present ruling coalition there. There were FIRs and cases against several NCP and Shiv Sena defectors, including Ajit Pawar, Praful Patel and Chhagan Bhujbal. Ajit Pawar was allegedly involved in a Rs 25,000 crore scam and Patel in money laundering. Defection to the BJP side has given them protection from prosecution.

The new ED chief Rahul Navin has begun in earnest. Monitored by Amit Shah’s office, pre-poll raids by the ED and CBI have been launched on a much bigger scale on firms and individuals close to the opposition groups. In the coming months, much heavier work is being lined up for the new ED chief.

Karnataka has been specially targeted, where the ruling Congress is presumed to collect funds for other states. The IT seized Rs 42 crore and Rs 45 crore from two locations. The four-day operation was focused on government contractors and real estate developers.

The coordinated swoops continued for four days spread over four states: Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Delhi. The operation yielded Rs 94 crore in cash and Rs 8 crore worth of jewellery, diamonds and watches. In another raid on October 16 on a contractor and his son, income tax sleuths seized Rs 50 crore. Hours after the raids, the BJP’s official spokespersons justified the swoops and demanded a CBI inquiry to bring out the full facts.

In Chhatisgarh, there were organised raids in which Rs. 5.5 crore was seized. This included unaccounted cash and liquor. There have been similar, relatively low-intensity operations at the local level which went unrecorded. The pre-election swoop is a new instrument resorted to starve the opposition groups. This has forced the Congress to plan for crowdfunding.

And more and more raids:

• Five days before elections in Chhatisgarh, the ED seized Rs 5 crore that a betting app allegedly sent to a political party.
• The Income Tax department on November 2 conducted raids on the premises of Congress and BRS leaders. The amount seized was not revealed.
• The ED on November 3 searched 25 locations belonging to the Jal Jeevan Mission in poll-bound Rajasthan.
• Income Tax sleuths conducted raids on 37 locations in connection with E.V. Velu, a minister and close aide of M.K Stalin.
• For a change, Rajasthan’s anti-corruption bureau arrested two ED officials for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 15 lakh for favours.

For Amit Shah, pre-poll swoops aimed at disrupting the flow of funds for the opposition’s election campaign are a relatively minor operation. Therefore, the ED and CBI have intensified swoops on big shots on a bigger scale. While political parties were busy selecting candidates and organising the campaign, the ED and CBI began simultaneous raids in four states.

In a single day, the ED raided the Rajasthan Congress president Govind Singh Dotasara, Om Prakash Huda and Ashok Gehlot’s son Vaibhav Gehlot in different cases. While Vaibhav is charged under FEMA, a money laundering probe into the alleged recruitment exam leak came in handy to corner Dotasara.

Chief minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao’s daughter K. Kavitha was the target in Telangana and Kamal Nath’s son Ratul Puri in Madhya Pradesh. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), of course, is the most favoured target. It regularly faces the rigours of joint operations by the Lieutenant Governor, the ED, CBI, IT department and the Delhi police.

A month before the current of action, Gehlot’s home minister Rajendra Yadav was targeted in a mid-day meal scam. Apparently, the ED, CBI and IT are now concentrating on Rajasthan and Delhi. In Rajasthan, in all, nine leaders have been dragged into cases by the central agencies. They include Gehlot’s son, brother, ministers and senior Congres leaders.

Every party that is part of the INDIA bloc has its share of senior leaders and ministers in jail or under the ED’s scanner. Delhi’s AAP leads the list with three ministers languishing in jail: Satyendar Jain, Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh. Now they started raids on a fourth minister.

In West Bengal, Amit Shah’s other target state, top Trinamool Congress leaders have been in and out of jail. After the arrest of former minister Jyotipriya Mallick, this is what BJP MP Dilip Ghosh commented: “At this rate, Mamata Bannerjee will have to hold her cabinet meeting in jail.”

How a cross-section of leaders reacted to the one-sided operations by the ED, CBI and IT:

• A defector to the BJP in Maharashtra boasted in public: “I am now a BJP MP. ED will not touch me.” 
• Senior Congress leader Gourav Vallabh said that all those who question Modi’s actions are sent to jail.
• Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that the ED and CBI have become panna pramukhs (booth in-charges) of the BJP.
• Citing personal experience, AAP leader Sanjay Singh alleged that the ED had now become the “extortion department”.

And the onslaught goes on and on. But the ED, CBI and IT department have not raided even a single BJP leader or those from its allies. 

P. Raman is a veteran journalist.