Commentary/T V R Shenoy

When MPs and MLAs from the ruling party threaten civil war, isn't it the duty of the Union home minister to act decisively?

Should Laloo Prasad Yadav resign? If he refuses to go with honour, should New Delhi remove him willy-nilly?

I think these questions can be answered with two others. First, what would be the fate of a petty clerk accused of pilfering funds? Second, what would all the moralists in the I K Gujral ministry have bleated had it been a BJP/BSP/Shiv Sena chief minister who faced CBI prosecution?

To answer the first, any bureaucrat, high or low, would have been suspended automatically. He would have been told not to come to work until cleared of all suspicion.

That would be plain common sense, not vindictiveness. The alleged crime was possible only because of the powers of his office. Permitting him to remain there would only encourage further, probably greater, abuse of power.

The accused would be in a position to destroy evidence, or at least squirrel it away. Witnesses would be persuaded -- read 'threatened' -- to toe the line.

This is precisely what seems to be happening in Bihar today. Mysterious fires are said to be destroying certain proofs of guilt. And key witnesses have already met with 'accidental death' or committed 'suicide'.

I shudder for the fate of other witnesses -- perhaps even those of the accused wishing to confess -- if Laloo Yadav continues as chief minister. Yet nobody in the United Front seems particularly concerned.

(If you ask me, it is already very late in the day. The CBI made its intentions about Laloo Yadav clear as far back as April 27. Between that dramatic announcement and the actual filing of a chargesheet lies a gap of two months, largely thanks to a compliant Bihar governor. And if you go back to the time when the investigation started, the alleged criminals have had fifteen months to shred evidence and intimidate witnesses.)

So much for common sense and the rigours of the law applying with equal force to clerks and to chief ministers. Let us now move on to the second question: how Gujral and his backers would have reacted to a scandal involving the BJP, and how they treat one of their own.

It takes very little for the UF to scream at the BJP or any of its allies. The Mayawati government, for instance, is damned by the Union home minister for the 'deteriorating' law and order situation in the state.

His evidence? Little more than Mulayam Singh Yadav's word. The word of a man whose first act in his last incarnation as chief minister was to repeal the law against cheating!

And what, pray, does the 'honourable' Union home minister have to say about his UF colleague in Bihar? In a word -- nothing.

I find this a little surprising. For several weeks now the beleaguered chief minister's supporters have been promising a bloodbath in Bihar if their leader is touched. When MPs and MLAs from the ruling party threaten civil war, isn't it the duty of the Union home minister to act decisively?

But why should I single out poor Indrajit Gupta? His prime minister, the great hero who claims that he stood up to Sanjay Gandhi, shivers at the thought of taking on Laloo Prasad Yadav.

Gujral didn't open his mouth till the CBI filed the chargesheet. The best he would do was to mutter meaningless phrases about 'norms'.

What of the Left Front? Ostensibly they are all for removing Laloo Yadav. But they won't put any pressure on the Union Cabinet. All they will do is to talk about taking up the issue at the steering committee.

How about the Congress, which provides the oxygen for the ailing UF? Sitaram Kesri isn't the man to disturb his fellow Bihari. The Congress will suggest that Laloo Yadav resign, but it won't demand any such thing (leave alone make it a condition of continued support).

The Bihar chief minister isn't the man to be scared of such mealy-mouthed responses. He cares nothing for Gujral's beloved 'norms'. Small wonder that he has shamelessly vowed to continue to rule even if he were imprisoned, or even sent to the gallows. (Mercifully, even the loud-mouthed chief minister can't promise to rule from Yama's domains!)

Whether or not the Janata Dal changes its president is that party's internal affair. (You need a high-power electron microscope to find the differences between the two candidates!) But what the Union Cabinet proposes to do with an errant chief minister is a matter of concern for every Indian.

Right now Gujral and his colleagues propose to sleep over it. And that, fellow citizens, translates into a continuing nightmare for wretched Bihar.

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