#ModiTakesBribe: The Fight Between Kejriwal And Modi

On Tuesday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took to the podium in a special session of the Delhi assembly and made some serious allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Holding a stack of documents, Kejriwal alleged that Modi had received kickbacks from the Aditya Birla Group (ABG). “For the first time in independent India’s history … any Prime Minister’s name has come in records related to black money,” said Kejriwal. He added that documents related to a similar deal with the Sahara Group are also likely to see the light of day.

The Allegation Against Narendra Modi

According to Kejriwal, the appraisal report was filed by the Income Tax (IT) department following a raid that was conducted in October 2013, on the office of ABG’s group executive president, Shubhendu Amitabh. One of the things discovered was a message that suggested money was paid to an entry titled “Gujarat CM.” Allegedly, one document from 2012 was found on Amitabh’s laptop and it read: “Gujarat CM Rs 25”. The Aam Aadmi Party believes this conclusively proves that ABG paid the then Gujarat chief minister (CM) Narendra Modi Rs 25 crore to clear certain projects.

According to the Indian Express, the only other nationally syndicated English daily that covered this was The Hindu. The reference to “Gujarat CM” is part of the 223-page annexure in the appraisal report, which includes information retrieved from e-mails and copies of Blackberry Messenger (BBM) messages recovered from Amitabh’s laptop and phone. The IT department recovered Rs 25.3 crore from Amitabh’s office in New Delhi. He was questioned 14 times.

Despite the company’s Deputy General Manager (Accounts) Anand Kumar Saxena’s admission to IT officials that large amounts of cash were regularly routed through “angadias” or “local hawala operators” and payments were made to “unidentified persons”, the case was not investigated further. Kejriwal read from a copy of the IT department’s analysis of Amitabh’s laptop and his interviews. “It would be imperative for the assessment officer to scrutinise the data available and seize the documents including the laptop and the hard disk and determine the quantum of income concealed by Mr Shubhendu Amitabh,” Kejriwal read out.

The Delhi CM has alleged that the reason the case was dropped is because the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power six months later, after the 2014 general elections. He has also speculated that the Congress and BJP had an understanding that ensured the case wasn’t pursued. “This raid happened in 2013,” Kejriwal said in the Delhi Assembly. “The Congress was in power. But they should have initiated action given that Narendra Modi was projected as Prime Minister’ face for BJP. Then it means that the BJP and Congress had deals between them. They must have thought that once Narendra Modi becomes the PM, he will help them in the Robert Vadra case.”

ABG has declined to comment on these statements. Predictably enough, the BJP has dismissed these charges. Deriding Kejriwal for what he called “spit and run” tactics, the BJP’s national secretary, Sidharth Nath Singh told NDTV, “To take his charges seriously is a joke.” He went on to say that this was AAP’s attempt at maligning Modi because the popular support for demonetisation had made Kejriwal nervous.

On The Floor Of The Assembly:

This big announcement was not done in the typical press conference fashion that has been common to Kejriwal for the last several years. Instead he chose to make this dramatic announcement on the floor of the house. Legal experts say this is because it insulates Kejriwal from legal action. You might recall he was sued by Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari for defamation. The Jaitley defamation cases are still pending in court. All proceeding in parliament and assemblies have been conferred “absolute immunity from proceedings in any court of law”. This means that the BJP will have to counter this politically or through social media. This makes for an interesting battle since both the AAP and BJP have an active (even over-active) social media team (and strategy).

While those leaning towards AAP will consider this a “masterstroke” (the most-used term for any political action other than “surgical strike”) the BJP’s Vijendra Gupta has termed this a “misuse” of assembly privileges. “CM Kejriwal has misused the privileges of the House to level baseless, false and malicious allegations against the Prime Minister,” said Gupta.

Enter Prashant Bhushan

Kejriwal is not the only one making allegations. The advocate Prashant Bhushan filed an application in the Supreme Court (SC) on November 14, demanding a thorough investigation of the Sahara and Birla documents seized (these were raided on November 22, 2013).  Bhushan’s newly-formed political party, Swaraj India released a statement saying Bhushan had filed a complaint on October 25, 2016, to the Chairman of Central Board of Direct Tax (CBDT) regarding the evidence of political corruption “that the CBI has been sitting over for two years”. Bhushan had also reached out to other agencies, such as the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and called for a special investigation team (SIT). He had sent pages of the ABG and Sahara documents to these agencies.

There’s a single cryptic line in the ABG papers – “Gujarat CM 25 Cr (12 Done, rest?)” – but the Sahara documents run into pages and list a series of names belonging to political parties and chief ministers who were paid money.

At one point, Amitabh told the IT department that “Gujarat CM” was an abbreviation for Gujarat Alkalis and Chemicals Limited. When he was asked whether there were similar entries elsewhere for this company and who else in ABG used this abbreviation, the Birla executive replied this was his random personal code and not meant for official transmission.

In 11 of the Sahara documents (which run into thousands of the pages), there are mentions of “political payouts” and the list of beneficiaries includes the BJP, Congress, Janata Dal (U), Rashtriya Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party, Nationalist Congress Party, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha, Trinamool Congress, Biju Janata Dal, Bharatiya Kisan Union and the Shiv Sena.

However, according to the Indian Express, SIT officials have found some entries among the Sahara papers that could be “fabricated.” According to a statement on oath (that is part of the appraisal report), a Sahara official said the payment entries were made by him to put other company officials in a fix.

Prashant Vs Modi Vs Kejriwal:

In case you thought Bhushan and Kejriwal would join hands against Modi with these allegations, there is also bad blood between them. Swaraj India has accused Kejriwal of sitting on the evidence against Modi since June this year. A statement released by the party also accused the Delhi CM of timing his address to the Delhi Assembly for political gain, as opposed to bringing the truth to light. “The Delhi government and AAP leadership went silent, while it continued its anti-Modi rhetoric in public. Now that The Hindu has exposed this fact, the Delhi CM is trying to make a virtue of a necessity and using the Delhi assembly as a forum to do what Prashant Bhushan has already done three weeks ago,” the statement said.

AAP declined to comment on this allegation. However, a reliable source told Newslaundry that AAP’s original plan was to make the revelation about Modi’s name featuring in the ABG file, a special session of Delhi assembly called on September 30. However, the “surgical strike” and its resultant din forced the party to delay this announcement.

It’s worth noting that around that point in time by Delhi government media advisor Arunoday Prakash and other AAP members, took to twitter to claim something big was brewing.

If there is one thing the AAP has mastered, it is timing their announcements for optimal media leverage.

In terms of timing, there’s no doubt that an accusation of bribery would make a significantly greater splash following the polarising demonetisation scheme than at a time when Modi was riding a wave of nationalism.

The author can be contacted on Twitter @amit_bhardwaz