'Show me the money!'

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Madhya Pradesh has, over the past three years, evolved a culture in which ostentation and brute force have become its self-promotional plank. For a party that once prided itself on not countenancing corruption, it has been a steep fall.

By N D Sharma

Chaos prevailed in Bhopal on January 27. A large contingent of undisciplined youth had taken charge of the roads and lanes, some of them jumping to the dissonance of drums. Guns were fired in the air. Office-goers found themselves stranded for hours, many of those in need of medical attention could not make it to the hospitals, and commuters missed their trains and buses.

The mob show had been organised as a "rally" in support of Vishwas Sarang, the newly-appointed president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), who was going to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters to take charge of office.

Over the past three years, this civilisation-stopping ostentation has been the new culture evolved by the leaders of the ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh. When Narendra Singh Tomar went to Gwalior, his home town, after being elected state BJP president in November 2006, a big mela was organised to receive him: 501 guns were fired in the air, with police officials standing by in servitude.

Then, again, Uma Shankar Gupta, BJP Member of the Legislative Assembly from Bhopal South, went abroad as a member of the Assembly delegation. On his return, he went around the entire city in a big procession of hired workers, with bands heralding his coming. He did not inform his voters of what he had ever done apart from squander public money on his foreign jaunt.

People wonder about Vishwas Sarang's contribution of to the cause of the party (or that of the public) for which he was appointed president of the BJYM. What is the source of the substantial cash that he blew on organising his mob show? People point at his father, Kailash Sarang, probably the biggest gamesman the Madhya Pradesh BJP has produced. As vice-president of the state BJP, he was the unconstitutional centre of power during the BJP government of Sunderlal Patwa. Indian Adminis-trative Service and Indian Police Service officers often took directions from him. The then director of public relations used to personally accompany visiting journalists to meet Sarang Sr for briefings on affairs of state. Such was Sarang Sr's clout that he made even then industries minister Kailash Joshi, a person of impeccable integrity, issue a notification—not in the larger public interest—to help Sarang acquire an industrial unit through debatable means.

This was such a blatant case of corruption that BJP leaders (including Sunderlal Patwa, then state BJP president Lakhiram Agrawal, and party patriarch Kushabhau Thakre) could not defend it. While Joshi had facilitated the transfer of the unit (the plot allotted for setting up the unit was on 99-year lease and could not be transferred), Sarang had paid a total sum of Rs 3.2 lakh for the unit, the market value of which was estimated between Rs 30 lakh and 40 lakh. Asked where Sarang Sr had got so much money from, given that he had defaulted on the repayment of bank loans for his poultry farm, Patwa's lame reply was, "Sarang is not the only defaulter."

The Sarang saga does not end there. The Central leadership of the BJP was constrained to institute an inquiry following large-scale and persistent complaints that Sarang had been misappropriating party funds. The inquiry was held by a two-member committee comprising former BJP treasurer Ved Prakash Goyal and then Rajya Sabha member from Bihar Ashwani Kumar. The charges against Sarang were substantiated. Both Patwa and Thakre pleaded with the party high command not to relieve Sarang of his post as it would not be good for the morale of the state party workers. The scam had, however, reached such proportions that the party high command could not brush it under the carpet. Sarang was asked to resign, and a terse announcement was made on April 30, 1992, to the effect that his resignation had been "accepted".

Last year, Income Tax department sleuths arrested a contractor with Rs 50 lakh in cash as he alighted from an aircraft at Bhopal airport. The contractor reportedly told the IT that the money was meant for a Madhya Pradesh minister. There were no ripples at all. Rampal Singh, who was minister of public health engineering, had shown assets worth Rs 87,000 in the affidavit he had filed at the time of the 2003 Assembly elections. Last year, Singh contested for the Lok Sabha from the Vidisha constituency (vacated by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan) and mentioned in the affidavit that he had assets worth Rs 4.92 crore. He did not explain how he had amassed so much wealth during his two-and-a-half years as minister.

Sarang Sr has, meanwhile, not only secured a party position for his son but also appropriated land near Bhopal where his son plans to set up a dental college. Is it any coincidence that establishing "professional" colleges with liberal government munificence has long been an easy way to make pots of money?