Inside Track: Vajpayee, Advani to the rescue of MP

Kindness and generosity towards a cunning and unscrupulous foe is wholly misplaced, but neither Prime Minister Vajpayee nor Deputy Prime Minister Advani is able to grasp the truth in this basic tenet of human conduct.

Even when there exist legitimate grounds to book them, Vajpayee and Advani tend to gloss over their criminal acts.

The case in point is the fact thrown up by CBI investigations into the shenanigans of the Flex group of companies owned by one Ashok Chaturvedi who was arrested sometime ago while allegedly bribing a slew of Customs and Excise officials in return for favours to self and others.

It turns out that a high-profile opposition member of the Rajya Sabha, or the Upper House of India's Parliament, who was a director on the board of Flex Industries had unauthorisedly withdrawn Rs2.2 million from the company's account in just one year.

This was a clear violation of the law and a fit case for prosecution of the said MP who belongs to what its critics call the 'Rupiyawadi Party'.

In fact so severe are the findings of the CBI inquiry into the Flex racket that the said MP who can be often seen talking on myriad television channels can forfeit his seat in the Rajya Sabha.

Incidentally, the share price of the flagship Flex company was at one time taken to over Rs600 with the result that a lot of innocent investors lost their savings. There was a sharp drop in the share price and for quite some time now it has been a little over Rs10.

The Flex group had borrowed close to Rs10,000 million from banks and public financial institutions and it was the said RS member who had used his influence to have these dud loans restructured.

But such is the gullibility - or is it pusillanimity? - of the Vajpayee-Advani duo that it is sitting on the file containing the CBI report.

This, when the said MP has been throwing money at the BJP MLAs in UP in order to destabilise the BSP-BJP government of Chief Minister Mayawati. Only recently he had threatened to have a DNA test done on someone close to a BJP leader.

And had sought to exploit an unfortunate matrimonial tiff in the family of another senior BJP leader only to embarrass the party leadership down the line.

Will Vajpayee and Advani wake up?

In sharp contrast to the kid glove manner Vajpayee and Advani treat their opponents, Uttar Pradesh (UP) Chief Minister Mayawati believes in taking the battle to the enemy camp. She threatened to lock up a Rajya Sabha member of the Samajwadi Party under the National Security Act if he persisted in his attempts to lure away BSP-BJP legislators by foul means.

Knowing her, the said MP was a bundle of nerves and rushed post haste to the national capital. Mayawati let it be known that she would lock up the said MP for about two months before the advisory board, mandatory under the NSA, could meet and discuss the right and wrong of his detention.

Even before they could tango together in UP and later on its shoulders at the centre, bitter recriminations have broken out between the leaders of the Congress Party and the Samajwadi Party.

Because the Congress party in the by-election to the lone seat to the UP Vidhan Parishad (legislative council) from the MLAs' constituency did not vote for the opposition candidate, thus making possible the success of the candidate of ruling BSP-BJP, the SP leaders have fired abusive salvoes against the Congress party and its leader, Sonia Gandhi.

In fact, they are calling the Congress party "pseudo-secular". But it is in private that they are hurling unprintable terms at Sonia Gandhi before which the harsh words used by the VHP leader Togadia and the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi pale into insignificance.

Finance Minister Jaswant Singh watch out! There is a concerted move to embarrass him for no other reason than the fact that he refuses to play ball with the country's most thuggish industrial group.

In the past they had dug up some alleged violation of the moral code, mind you moral and not legal code, to try and show one of the more suave and better spoken BJP leaders in poor light but to no avail.

Recently they had sought to make a mountain out of a mole hill when they inspired reports that Singh's sons had paid the market price for firearms from a government department on quite legitimate security grounds. Probably they would have been happier if the Singh sons had got those guns completely free!

Now, we learn, that the same old industrial group was focussing on the daily expenses that are incurred by Singh on maintaining his Saudi Arabian horse. In his earlier avatar as Foreign Minister Singh was gifted a handsome thoroughbred by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah since the later knew about Singh's fondness for horse-riding.

On its arrival, the horse was duly 'deposited' in the 'maalkhana'. As per the practice, the government valuers put a price tag on the gifted steed. Singh paid the requisite price and became the proud owner of the horse.

Since he is a polo enthusiast who loves to take his mount on long morning trots through Lutyens' Delhi whenever he can spare time from his busy ministerial schedule, the horse is duly maintained at Singh's personal expense.

The business house wants to try and embarrass him on the specious ground that there was no precedent for the 'maalkhana' to value a gift horse and that the expenses on its maintenance were so high that it was a mystery as to how the finance minister could meet them.