“Manmohan will be PM till 2014”

As the Congress feels the tremors of its own deeds, and the opposition asks for the PM’s head, party General Secretary Digvijay Singh speaks to Open

For a party riding the high of an unexpectedly clear election victory just over a year ago, the Congress’ slide into its current morass is remarkable. The 2G spectrum sale, Radia tapes, Commonwealth Games controversy, Bofors—its worry list is endless, as past and present scams hit the party hard. For the first time since it regained power, questions are being asked that extend all the way to the very top. The sweeping defeat in Bihar and deadlock in Parliament before the Budget Session are new headaches for a party faced with a revived opposition. At a time when most Congressmen seem to be talking at cross-purposes, Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh, in conversation with Open, challenges the widely held perception of a party in disarray. On the very day he produces proof of having indeed spoken to Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) Chief Hemant Karkare on 26 November 2008, he also talks of how his campaign against ‘Hindu terror’ has been misrepresented and misunderstood: 

Q The 2G scam and now Bofors. Is it not the case that your party, which had looked its strongest just a year ago, has managed to sink to its worst position in over a decade, thanks to problems of its own making?

A I don’t think so. The Congress has seen many ups and downs. The Congress remains strong. The Congress President and Prime Minister are both clean and have taken a strong stand against corruption by acting merely on perception. Ashok Chavan, the former Chief Minister of Maharashtra, did not allot the land [for the Adarsh Housing Society], but it was a perception that he [favoured his own] relatives. On the other hand, look at Yeddyurappa, the Chief Minister of Karnataka who helped two sons and one daughter get land. And what is [BJP President] Gadkari’s defence? ‘It is not illegal but immoral.’ I want to know—what is his definition of corruption? So you can go on being immoral and corrupt, and yet there is no need to resign?

Q The BJP, on the other hand, looked weak after the 2004 Lok Sabha results and even weaker after 2009. Yet, the Congress seems to have given it enough in the past one year to play a strong opposition. The Government couldn’t even get Parliament running in the last session.

A The BJP has no faith in the law of the land. Where the Ram Janmabhoomi [issue] is concerned, it will not go by the Supreme Court decision. It will not discuss issues in Parliament. The party has no faith in the Judiciary, in the Constitution and in democracy. They only have faith in themselves.

Q In the face of this crisis, aren’t there clear signs of rifts within the Congress, with Pranab Mukherjee saying he would not have recommended the PM’s appearance before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC)? You yourself, while briefing the media at the AICC plenary session, said you were surprised by that decision.

A I said I was pleasantly surprised. It was a brave gesture to offer to appear before the PAC. It laid to rest speculation in the media that the PM is shying away from a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).

Q Why then is your party not agreeing to a JPC? It is, after all, a prescribed Parliamentary body. How can the demand for such a body be dismissed as mere politics?

A The committee prescribed for such a case is the PAC, not JPC. Why was the opposition not allowing any discussion in the Lok Sabha? Why was the opposition not allowing the PAC to [examine] the CAG report?

Q But surely the issues raised by the 2G scam and Radia tapes go well beyond the CAG report, do they not?

A As far as the entire 2G issue is concerned, there is no problem. The CBI is investigating it, the Enforcement Directorate is looking into it, the Income Tax Department is looking into it. What could then be achieved by the JPC? It will become a parallel committee. The PAC is a mandatory committee to look into the CAG [report]. The JPC looking into the issue will also be made up of the same kind of people, the same MPs. Suppose the JPC reaches one conclusion and the PAC reaches another, what happens then? Again, why should a 15-member JPC take precedence over a discussion of the full House of Parliament? The CBI FIR was filed long before the JPC demand. The investigation has started, the raids have begun. Suppose now the JPC comes up with its findings. All that will happen is the case will again go to the CBI. What is the need?

Q Do you think the Government and Prime Minister can survive this crisis?

A This Government will complete its full term till 2014 with Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister.

Q But the party is in political retreat. You recently said at the AICC plenary that it is time for Rahul Gandhi’s team to take over. But there have been setbacks already—Bihar, for instance.

A Please do not connect Rahul Gandhi with what happened in Bihar. We have not done well in the state for 10–15 years, and that is because we have been aligning with Lalu Yadav. We have got the disadvantage of being on the wrong side. The fact remains we got four seats in the 2004 Lok Sabha, and this came down to two seats in 2009. In the Assembly, we got nine seats in 2004 and this has come down to four, so we have not really done worse over the past few years, but yes, we have not been able to gain.

Q But Uttar Pradesh is about Rahul Gandhi…

A Yes, Uttar Pradesh is associated with Rahul Gandhi. In the 2004 Lok Sabha, we got nine seats, and in 2009 this went up to 22 seats. We did much better.

Q However, Rahul Gandhi’s much touted ‘Mission 2012’ in UP has been abandoned midway. It was launched with such fanfare from Ambedkar Nagar, and then the second phase scheduled for October never took off.

A No, not at all. We have one full year. We will begin the second phase soon. The approach has been changed. We will go in for an agitational approach in every Assembly segment.

Q It is a widely held perception that you are trying to cater to UP’s Muslim votebank by playing politics with the idea of ‘Hindu terror’, thus diverting attention from far more serious internal security threats.

A Such as?

Q The threat from what is described as Islamic terror.

A There is no such thing as Islamic or Hindu terror, I believe. In either case, terror is the work of fringe elements, either Hindu or Muslim. In fact, it is the ideology of this fringe that leads to the spread of communal hatred. I have not really taken any side on such issues. I am against all communal forces. As CM [of Madhya Pradesh], I acted against SIMI and the Bajrang Dal. I did not allow either of them to hold a conference in MP during my tenure. 

The unfortunate part is that there is infiltration of the system by the Sangh Parivar. This is the real cause of worry. There was the involvement of several military personnel using RDX from Kashmiri militants to manufacture bombs. That is something quite scary. I have confronted the BJP and RSS on this, and they ignore this and instead question the integrity of the investigative team. They demand a change in the ATS team. The Shiv Sena runs a front-page editorial that calls Karkare all sorts of names. They threaten to publish the names of all of Karkare’s relatives in Mumbai so that Shiv Sena men can go and spit outside their homes. This demoralises those investigating right-wing terror, as happened to Karkare.  What can you expect when the Prime Minister-in-waiting LK Advani questions your integrity and politicises the arrest of those involved in terrorist acts? The media never questions them. This is my main objection. I am called all sorts of names, but what happened when Narendra Modi called Hemant Karkare a deshdrohi (traitor), who questioned it? And after he dies on 26/11, these same men have the temerity to offer Rs 1 crore to his wife, which she rightly turned down.

Q The issue, though, is not in what you say, but where and in whose company you say it. When you speak at the release of a book by Aziz Burney, you lend credence to all sorts of crackpot conspiracy theories about Israeli and American involvement in 26/11.

A There is no question of this. In fact, there was Press there on the day I spoke, and I had particularly said that I do not subscribe to these theories. The issue is a closed chapter, and 26/11 was the work of Pakistani terrorists and there is no doubt about it. But the fact that Hemant Karkare was being pressurised is a fact confirmed by the media and men like [Julio] Ribeiro.

Q The book you released also had some things written by Amaresh Misra who you have personally inducted into the Congress and has also written some rather unpalatable things about your own party.

A Amaresh is a historian who has written a two-volume work and he is anti-communal.

He fought the last election from Lucknow, with the backing of the Ulema Council. As far as the Congress is concerned, he joined the party in 2009 and all the writings you refer to precede that.

Q Do his views serve as proxies for your own views of the Prime Minister and Home Minister?

A (laughs) I have nothing to say on this. I have no axe to grind with the Prime Minister. As for Chidambaram, I have known him for 30 years. After all, he is a friend. We have had our differences, but I do not want to elaborate.

Q Now that you have produced evidence of having been in contact with Hemant Karkare, were you surprised by the controversy your comments generated?

A Yes, I was flabbergasted. Why did my comments get noticed four days after the book release function where I spoke? And then suddenly all hell broke loose. On that day, all TV channels were running my story, and WikiLeaks did not help [The cable conveying Rahul’s comments on Hindu terror was also made public that day]. Suddenly, I was being called a liar, a Pakistani, someone who was helping Pakistanis, an anti-national element. I almost had the feeling all this was generated.

Q Who could possibly generate something like this?

A I would not like to say.

Q Do you think Maharashtra’s Home Minister RR Patil showed too much eagerness in declaring that phone records do not show you and Karkare having spoken?

A Well, the least he could have done is called and checked with me first.

Q Do you really think the phenomenon described as ‘Hindu terror’ is a real threat?

A Any kind of terror is a threat, whether it emerges from the minority or majority community. But you have to see the genesis of terror in the Hindi heartland. The country had witnessed terror in Kashmir and Punjab, but never in the Hindi heartland. It only started when Advani launched his Rath Yatra. This communalised the body politic, and then the demolition of the Babri Masjid led to blasts in Mumbai and riots all over the country. All kinds of organisations sprang up, IM, HUJI, and what not. There were a series of communal riots across the country.  And then came the Gujarat genocide. It was used to polarise the politics of this country. I have always stood against communal forces, be they Hindu or Muslim. You have to see how these communal forces have worked. On one end, there was Jinnah, and then let us not forget Veer Savarkar, who floated the ideas that [inspired] the Sangh. He was a proclaimed atheist. Hindutva, by its nature, has nothing to do with the Hindu religion.

Q You seem to have taken it up as a cause. Why this particular interest in ‘Hindu terror’?

A There were a series of blasts in MP. The first incident took place in 1992 in Neemuch at a VHP office. They were making a bomb and the lights went out and one of them lit a match, leading to an explosion. One person died and three VHP members were injured—one was hospitalised. The BJP was in power and closed the case. When I became CM, I reopened the case and traced the person who was hospitalised. He was teaching in a Shishu Mandir [run by the Sangh outfit Sewa Bharti] in Khargone, but by then the case had been so badly spoilt that the investigation did not lead to any conviction. Then in 2002, there was a blast in a temple in Mhow. Investigations by the MP police led to RSS activists, and the four people who were arrested accepted responsibility for the blast. Two people evaded arrest; one of them was Sunil Joshi [later an accused in the Ajmer blast case who was later killed by RSS hitmen, according to the police] who I believe took refuge in Gujarat. Another blast took place at the Bhopal railway station on the day of Ijtima [a Muslim congregation of Tablighi preachers that takes place in Bhopal, accompanied by a fair that draws pilgrims from across the world]. We had been tracking these cases down, and I have a dossier on this. The subsequent details are well known by now. In 2007, the Malegaon blasts took place, and Pragya [Thakur, the sadhvi] and others had a hand in this.

Q These cases involve several people affiliated with the Sangh Parivar. Also named in some cases is Aseemanand, one-time head of the Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad, a Sangh organisation that works among tribals. Does all this amount to more than just tacit backing by the Sangh? Do you think terror is a deliberate strategy adopted by it?

A Absolutely. The RSS has about 150 front organisations. The VHP is one of them, as is the Sewa Bharti, and then there are a number of others. When their members are named, it suggests something. It is in this context that I first called Hemant Karkare and congratulated him on his work. I also gave him my feedback, and so came to know him. I never met him, but I did talk to him on several occasions.

CongressDigvijay Singh