Cash for Questions

FIFTY-ONE OF THE 60 QUESTIONS IN LOK SABHA FROM KRISHNANAGAR MP Mahua Moitra related to Gautam Adani, his businesses, and the sectors his compa­nies operated in—all allegedly for a price, from businessman Darshan Hiranandani. Initially, Moitra was dismissive of the complaints filed against her by her “jilted ex”, Supreme Court advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), contending that Dehadrai and she had broken up acrimoniously and the allegations were a consequence of his trying to get back at her. Events, however, took a turn for the worse when appar­ent ally and ‘friend’ Hiranandani submitted a signed affidavit to the Ethics Committee confirming Dehadrai’s allegations. A clearly rattled Moitra posted on social media that the government had “put a gun” to his head and threatened to shut down his businesses if he did not fall in line.

Moitra also maintained that all MPs gave their login and email addresses to support staff and researchers and were not always present in the same place and, therefore, this was not a crime. Hiranandani had claimed that Moitra had given him her MP’s login and address to directly post questions, on her behalf, on Gautam Adani and the Adani Group, with a view to targeting the busi­nessman. Sources in government say the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has established that the IP address was of Dubai when the MP was in Delhi, proving that someone other than Moitra herself was posting those questions.

Moitra, Hiranandani said in his affidavit to the Ethics Commit­tee, was “advised by her friends and advisors that the shortest route to fame is by personally attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi”. According to him, he assisted Moitra by producing the research and background information on Adani, which he forwarded to her because she wanted to “malign PM Modi by targeting the Adani Group.” If she is found guilty of accepting ‘rewards’ (or bribe) from the businessman, a rival of Adani, for asking questions about the Adani Group regularly, grave consequences could follow, including losing her MP status and a possible expulsion from her party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC).

It all began with a dog, designer bags, and a few expensive shoes. Neither the outspoken MP nor anyone following these events playing out over the last two weeks could have imagined that a pet Rottweiler could wreak so much damage on her reputation, and so quickly. Moitra and her ex-boyfriend Dehadrai have lodged po­lice complaints against each other over the last several weeks, with the advocate maintaining that she kidnapped his pet dog Henry. Moitra, in turn, lodged complaints that he had abused her verbally, barged into her residence to kidnap Henry, and threatened her.

Based on Dehadrai’s complaints against Moitra to CBI, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Nishikant Dubey filed a complaint with the anti-corruption ombudsman Lokpal against her. This was forward­ed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to the ethics panel of Parliament. On October 18, the Ethics Committee asked Dubey and Dehadrai to appear before it for “oral evidence” on October 26 in connection with the ‘cash for query’ allegations against Moitra.

ON SEPTEMBER 4, 1957, Ram Subhag Singh, a Congress MP, asked the following at Question Hour in Lok Sabha:

“Will the minister of finance be pleased to refer to a report in The Statesman (Delhi edition) of Aug. 3, 1957, to the effect that a sum of one crore [10 million] rupees from the funds of the Life Insurance Corporation had been invested in a private enterprise with its headquarters in Kanpur and state:

(a) the name of the private enterprise…
(b) the total amount invested so far; and
(c) the reasons for investing the funds in a private enterprise?”

This blew the lid off India’s first scam and led to the resignation of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s friend and Finance Minister TT Krishnamachari. It came to be known as the Mundhra scandal. It involved the government-controlled Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and Haridas Mundhra, the Calcutta-based industrialist, who was subsequently sentenced to 22 years in prison. It proved to be the Nehru government’s biggest scandal, especially after his son-in-law and Rae Bareli MP, Feroze Gandhi, played a key role in exposing what was independent India’s first big financial snafu.

In his biography, Feroze: The Forgotten Gandhi, Swedish journalist Bertil Falk says: “When Ram Subhag Singh questioned him, Feroze Gandhi saw that TTK’s legs began to shake”. Feroze Gandhi, leading the crusade against then Principal Finance Secretary HM Patel and Finance Minister Krishnamachari, demanded a probe which led to Nehru appointing the MC Chagla panel to investigate the matter. It was a different era when probity in government, bureaucracy and among elected MPs meant a lot, and even the slightest hint of corruption could be shameful enough to make heads roll. The Chagla panel’s probe was reportedly transpar­ent, incisive, and its findings were submitted within a month. Loudspeakers had to be set up for a curious public while the proceed­ings were conducted. On February 18, 1958, Krishnamachari resigned.

An MP’s question during Question Hour had forced accountability for and action against wrongdoing in a ministry and felled a minister for the first time. Question Hour subsequently became a vibrant part of par­liamentary proceedings, allowing MPs to ask questions that forced the government to divulge details and statistics on issues. In 1974, Congress MP from Araria, Tul Mohan Ram, was indicted for cor­ruption for issuing licences from the foreign trade ministry, after the issue was raised during Question Hour. Signatures on a memo by 24 MPs in support of issuing licences were found to be forged and linked directly to LN Mishra, the foreign trade minister close to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Mishra, though, died in a bomb blast in Samastipur in 1975 when he was Union railway minister.

Over time, the tradition of MPs using Question Hour—the most visible part of parliamentary proceedings, referred to as a form of ‘direct democracy’—to legitimately put the govern­ment of the day in the dock on key issues has got murkier, with entrenched trade and business lobbyists using it to push their agenda. In 2017, a Delhi court put 11 former MPs on trial for the 2005 cash-for-query scam. A sting operation by online news site Cobrapost that aired on a private TV channel on December 12, 2005, showed 11MPs—including six from BJP, three from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and one each from Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)—accepting cash in exchange of asking questions in Parliament. In a historic vote on December 24 that year, Lok Sabha expelled 10 members, while Chhatrapal Singh Lodha, the sole Rajya Sabha member on the list, was also expelled. Pranab Mukherjee had introduced the resolution in Lok Sabha for the expulsion of the members while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had done so in Rajya Sabha.

Since the Narendra Modi government took office in 2014, though, things have changed noticeably. Over the last nine years, bureaucrats and ministers working on the responses—before the date with questions earmarked for a specified ministry—have been instructed to research on the possibility of underhand in­terests at play. If there are questions from MPs from the treasury benches identified as ‘loaded’ one way or another, an unofficial investigation is launched in order to nullify the scope of any MP indulging in suspected lobbying.

THE LICENCE OR Permit Raj period of Congress rule was chock-a-block with elected representatives using the prevailing economic and bureaucratic environment to milk every ounce of profiteering from their privileges granted with taxpayers’ money. From gas and telephone connections (thanks to unending queues and inordinate waiting periods for ordinary citizens), even confirmed tickets for railway travel, national trans­port permits, public and Central School admissions, practically everything was for sale behind the façade of austere MPs’ quarters on North Avenue, South Avenue, VP House, and so on.

While influential politicians managed petrol pumps and gas agencies as well as export quotas for their favoured businessmen, those lower down the pecking order regularly sold their MP quota gas connections, telephone connections, and even Central School admission coupons. A senior journalist recalled, “The idli-vada ki­osks on North Avenue and South Avenue were the main addas of middlemen. You could touch base and indicate your needs to go-to persons there and get any form signed by MPs for facilities you needed to avail. It was common knowledge and a lot of people tapped into these back channels to skip long and distressing wait­ing periods.” Indeed, even the railway counter at Parliament House was pressed into service. It was open only to people with signed forms from an MP. The queues were infinitely shorter compared to the ones at railway counters at Paharganj and the railway tickets were confirmed upon submitting MP-signed forms, all for a price. MPs, most of whom would only be in New Delhi for a Parliament session, would also sublet rooms in their government-allotted residences to small-time businessmen who vied for such addresses. Even the quaintly arresting green tins of Darjeeling tea sold from Parliament counters were hankered after.

In that era, however, there were also veteran MPs who could not be influenced by lobbyists and whom businessmen did not dare to approach. They included MPs who were “uncompromising and inflexible” on corruption or lobbying, such as Jyotirmoy Basu (it’s a different matter that Amal Dutta, who represented his Lok Sabha constituency of Diamond Harbour, was a Chandraswami bhakt), Madhu Limaye, Madhu Dandavate, Mohan Dharia, and others. The modus operandi to influence these recalcitrant MPs was to dump files of rival business groups in the letter box. There was no guarantee that these would be taken up by the MPs in Parliament but then these leaders raised issues only after thorough research, something the Modi government has now made a priority, espe­cially for ruling-party MPs.

The influence of corporates on MPs increased in tandem with revolts within political parties. The rebels became easy targets for pushing the agenda of business and trade interests, especially given that their party leaders had little or no control over them. The system became so well-oiled under Congress’ rule that even minis­ters began to use MPs to represent issues close to them to help push controversial decisions through. Many of them insisted that the relevant letters and questions be raised by opposition members, so that the decisions made by the ministers were not challenged on the floor of the House or even outside Parliament. There were instances when MPs were instructed by ruling-party members and ministers that a particular business house should not be targeted and they should, instead, present the issue as one that affects an entire sector. In one instance, a former Congress minister, who now enjoys a cabinet berth in a southern state, was one of the signatories to a letter backing an industrial house although his own party was attacking the same industrial house.

Before 2014, the nexus between MPs-politicians and indus­try lobbyists was on full display. The latter even ensured ‘starred’ question status for their pet issues. This meant the MPs asking the question could view the replies by ministers before those were read out in Parliament and thus prepare to ask the two supplementary questions allowed. This allowed them to elicit the minute details they needed through extra questions and pin down the minister. Darshan Hiranandani’s questions on Gautam Adani and his busi­nesses, posed through Mahua Moitra, fell largely in this category and were aimed at getting precise details about sectors in which he himself was operating, including data, ports, and real estate. The Modi government has tightened the monitoring process on ruling-party MPs asking questions during Question Hour. Moitra, from the opposition TMC, apparently accepted favours from Hiranandani, including, allegedly, not just designer phones but also the expensive renovation of her government bungalow, tabs picked up for hotel stays and holidays abroad, travel bills cleared for her family, and so on. Her party has distanced itself from the developments.

ON JULY 16, 2011, the Supreme Court ordered police to reopen the investigation into the 2008 cash-for-votes scandal, allegedly perpetrated by a well-known ‘politi­cal kingmaker’—Amar Singh—once very close to Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav. Amar Singh, a Rajya Sabha MP, was known in political circles as a ‘glorified fixer’ and was believed to have ‘managed’ the survival of the first United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, headed by Manmohan Singh, in the no-trust vote.

The UPA government was rattled by the court order, given its be­lief that the issue had been buried successfully. For several months, it had stalled the issue from being taken up by the apex court. Amar Singh was accused of having enticed three BJP MPs—Ashok Argal, Faggan Singh Kulaste, and Mahaveer Bhagora—to defy their party whip and help the Manmohan Singh govern­ment in the July 22, 2008 no-confidence vote. Delhi Police (Crime Branch) officials claimed they had the statements of the three MPs that Singh had tried to bribe them with ₹3 crore each. They also had the statement of Amar Singh’s close associate. In Parliament, the three BJP MPs had rushed to the well of the House, waving cur­rency notes they claimed were part of the bribe paid on behalf of the ruling party and deposited cash amounting to ₹1 crore in the office of Speaker Somnath Chatterjee.

A private news channel was expected to air the scoop but backed out. It aired the news a month later but with anodyne visuals of Amar Singh’s aide Sanjeev Saxena slamming the cash down on the table at the residence of one MP, then calling up someone (Amar Singh?) to say, “Kaam ho gaya”. Subsequently, there was a public fallout between Singh and Mulayam, with the former threatening to expose the latter for his role in the no-trust vote against the Manmohan Singh government in 2008 over the Indo-US nuclear deal. Amar Singh told Delhi Police that the three MPs did not defy their party whip and so there was no crime. UPA was voted back to power for a second term in 2009 but there was no denying that his credibility and that of Congress took a beating.

There was a time, though, when probity among parliamen­tarians was given top priority by most MPs themselves to cul­tivate credibility. That was when, even till the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, MPs used Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC)-operated Matador vans to shuttle between their allotted apartments and Parliament House during a session. There were hardly any big cars parked in Parliament’s parking lot and cer­tainly no SUVs. It was an era when the small parking lot next to Parliament House’s reception could accommodate the cars of the few ‘privileged’ MPs who owned them. Many just chose to walk back from Parliament House to VP House where some MPs were lodged in small residential apartments. Now, the parking lot chokes on the big vehicles of MPs. Most MPs ate at the first-floor Parliament canteen or in the Central Hall. Several MPs picked up packs of milk and butter from the DMS booth outside Central Hall without any affectation.

A code of conduct for Lok Sabha members and a guideline for the declaration of business interests by MPs have been pending for long. However, parliament is now moving on this issue

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Today, affluent MPs flaunt their expensive tastes (Moitra, for instance, carried a Louis Vuitton handbag to Parliament for a debate on rising inflation) in accessories. MPs who once whiled away their time at the Parliament library or in the Central Hall, or even in party offices on the upper floors, now head to nearby five-star hotels for long lunch breaks.

Once upon a time in Parliament, MPs or their staff had to reach the ‘table office’ before 9AM to submit notices for Question Hour. That’s no longer the case. As with Moitra, notices submitted have gone electronic and can be uploaded from anywhere. And, as it transpired in her case, by anyone who has the MP’s email address. Khadi, the politician’s chosen fabric, symbolic of the freedom struggle and Mahatma Gandhi, has long given way to Italian linen and designer clothes and branded sunglasses. The advent of Page 3 meant MPs and their partners were constantly competing for attention on golf courses, at glitzy parties and ‘charity’ events. Simple living and high thinking is no longer held in reverence. High maintenance needs heavy funding.

Mahua Moitra’s may be the first case of parliamentary probity being taken up in the new Parliament House and also the first for a Lok Sabha MP. But both a Code of Conduct for Lok Sabha members and a guideline for the declaration of business inter­ests by MPs in the Lower House have been pending for long. The Code of Conduct for Lok Sabha is being considered by the Ethics Committee—inaugurated by then Rajya Sabha Chairperson KR Narayanan in 1997—for eight years or more. The 14-point Code has been in effect for the Upper House since 2005. Among other things, key points refer to conflicts between personal and public interests and how personal financial interests and those of the MP’s family should not jeopardise the public interest. Just as crucially, it maintains that MPs should not accept any fee, remu­neration or other benefits for votes on introducing a Bill, moving resolutions, putting or desisting from asking a question. A register of MPs’ interests, which ordinary citizens can also access under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, is also maintained for Rajya Sabha. Moitra’s case may not be the last. But on the Modi govern­ment’s watch, Parliament is moving with determination to curb unethical behaviour on the part of its members.

About The Author

PR Ramesh