Buta Singh and his amoral ways....
Someone like me, who follows political developments so closely, had lost track of Buta Singh’s movements. It probably needed something like a Global Positioning System (GPS) device to keep track of that. I remember Buta Singh as Minister in Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet in the late 1980s. He was among those sworn in on December 31, 1984 after Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress had won a huge majority in the general elections that year.
Punjab was on the boil then. And Buta Singh, along with many others were declared Thankaiya (traitors) by the Sikh clergy. I distinctly remember pictures of Buta Singh doing kar seva and allowing himself to be punished by the clerg, repenting for being part of the Congress party whose Government let the army into the Golden Temple to flush out and deal with Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. In other words, Buta Singh paid a price for being a part of the Congress and also wanting to remain a Sikh then!
It is also a fact that despite being a member of the Union Cabinet, Buta Singh was not even informed of the details of the talks between the Union Government and the Akali Dal leaders, throughout 1985, and he came to know of the developments on that front only when the rest of the nation knew about the settlement. Buta Singh did not mind that insult. He remained a Minister; and was made the Home Minister too! He was assigned a prominent role in attacking V.P.Singh in Parliament when the Congress was caught up with the Fairfax muddle. It is important to record here that V.P.Singh was the Defence Minister of the same Government at that time.
Thereafter, one remembers Buta Singh for his role in organizing the Shilanyas in Ayodhya on November 9, 1989. This, he did, in his capacity as Union Home Minister and on Rajiv Gandhi’s bidding. He was rewarded for all this. Sardar Buta Singh continued as Minister in the P.V.Narasimha Rao cabinet too. And his role in converting the minority government into a majority was far too well known. Buta Singh was involved in buying up votes in Parliament. He was charged for this in the infamous JMM payoffs scandal that rocked the Narasimha Rao led Congress.
Let me elaborate the scandal for those who were too young then. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) had six MPs then in the Lok Sabha. And the MPs were all available to negotiate a deal with the Congress in July 1993; the timing was that there was a no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha and the Narasimha Rao Government appeared like falling. The Government side was certainly short of a majority given the line-up of parties at that time. Buta Singh, with some others in the cabinet, got into the act and they were determined to save the Government and that way the country too!! In order to save democracy, Buta Singh was involved in negotiating the six JMM MPs. The six MPs, it so happened were convinced by Singh and voted in favour of the Government.
The day after, they went to the Punjab National Bank branch at Naoroji Nagar in Delhi and deposited huge sums of money in fixed deposits. One of them, Shailendra Mahato, however, let the cat out of the bag. At a press conference, held at the BJP headquarters, Mahato declared that himself and the other JMM MPs were paid huge sums by Buta Singh in exchange for their votes in Parliament and that the money that was deposited in the fixed deposits by them came that way!
The case went up to the Supreme Court and Buta Singh was spared of being punished only because the court held that even if there was evidence that the money was arranged by him, there was no connection between that and the manner in which the JMM MPs voted in the Lok Sabha in the confidence motion. In other words, a quid pro quo was not established between the giving-of-money and the voting-by-the-MPs. That was indeed a judgment that put the seal on the hopes, if there was any, that the corrupt men can be sent to jail by way of judicial interventions.
Buta Singh then figured in the Jain Hawala scandal. And Narasimha Rao ordered his exit from the cabinet as it was done with all others who were in the cabinet then. Buta Singh, like the others, quit the Congress, contested the 1996 Lok Sabha elections as an independent from Jalore, his old constituency in Rajastan, and won. He tried becoming a minister in the United Front Government. But the United Front did not need him simply because they had enough MPs in their own parties to become ministers.
Buta Singh did not relent. And he won from Jalore again in 1998 as independent. Atal Behari Vajpayee, though heading a combination that was the largest in the Lok Sabha was still in need of some more MPs to make up a majority for the NDA. And Buta Singh made himself available for Vajpayee; ofcourse for a price. He was sworn in minister on March 19, 1998 along with Vajpayee and others. Buta Singh was given the precious Telecomunications portfolio too. But then, as ill luck would have it, Singh was haunted by the JMM payoffs scandal raising its head. Telecommunication Minister Buta Singh had to quit the cabinet on April 20, 1998, exactly a month after he was sworn in.
I do not remember the date or the month or the year in which Buta Singh returned to the Congress. But then, he had done that and was rewarded with the post of Bihar Governor. In 2005, he played dirty to prevent Nitish Kumar becoming the Chief Minister despite the JD(U)-BJP combine having emerged a single largest combine. He recommended dissolution of the assembly even before it was convened and Buta Singh was chastised by the Supreme Court for having done all that.
Well. It did not matter. He was rewarded again. And this time as Chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes. A constitutional office meant to protect and safeguard the legal rights of the members of the Dalit community. And with his own track record, it is not difficult to know what he could have been doing from that office.
Let me now explain why I went about this exercise of recalling Buta Singh’s political past. The provocation came from the news recently about Buta Singh’s son, Sarobjit Singh, being held by the CBI in a case of demanding bribes from a Nashik based contractor in return for saving that contractor from a case that is pending before his father’s commission. Well, Sarobjit grew up seeing his father; and it is only natural that he resorted to making money from wherever it came from.
Someone like me, who follows political developments so closely, had lost track of Buta Singh’s movements. It probably needed something like a Global Positioning System (GPS) device to keep track of that. I remember Buta Singh as Minister in Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet in the late 1980s. He was among those sworn in on December 31, 1984 after Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress had won a huge majority in the general elections that year.
Punjab was on the boil then. And Buta Singh, along with many others were declared Thankaiya (traitors) by the Sikh clergy. I distinctly remember pictures of Buta Singh doing kar seva and allowing himself to be punished by the clerg, repenting for being part of the Congress party whose Government let the army into the Golden Temple to flush out and deal with Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. In other words, Buta Singh paid a price for being a part of the Congress and also wanting to remain a Sikh then!
It is also a fact that despite being a member of the Union Cabinet, Buta Singh was not even informed of the details of the talks between the Union Government and the Akali Dal leaders, throughout 1985, and he came to know of the developments on that front only when the rest of the nation knew about the settlement. Buta Singh did not mind that insult. He remained a Minister; and was made the Home Minister too! He was assigned a prominent role in attacking V.P.Singh in Parliament when the Congress was caught up with the Fairfax muddle. It is important to record here that V.P.Singh was the Defence Minister of the same Government at that time.
Thereafter, one remembers Buta Singh for his role in organizing the Shilanyas in Ayodhya on November 9, 1989. This, he did, in his capacity as Union Home Minister and on Rajiv Gandhi’s bidding. He was rewarded for all this. Sardar Buta Singh continued as Minister in the P.V.Narasimha Rao cabinet too. And his role in converting the minority government into a majority was far too well known. Buta Singh was involved in buying up votes in Parliament. He was charged for this in the infamous JMM payoffs scandal that rocked the Narasimha Rao led Congress.
Let me elaborate the scandal for those who were too young then. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) had six MPs then in the Lok Sabha. And the MPs were all available to negotiate a deal with the Congress in July 1993; the timing was that there was a no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha and the Narasimha Rao Government appeared like falling. The Government side was certainly short of a majority given the line-up of parties at that time. Buta Singh, with some others in the cabinet, got into the act and they were determined to save the Government and that way the country too!! In order to save democracy, Buta Singh was involved in negotiating the six JMM MPs. The six MPs, it so happened were convinced by Singh and voted in favour of the Government.
The day after, they went to the Punjab National Bank branch at Naoroji Nagar in Delhi and deposited huge sums of money in fixed deposits. One of them, Shailendra Mahato, however, let the cat out of the bag. At a press conference, held at the BJP headquarters, Mahato declared that himself and the other JMM MPs were paid huge sums by Buta Singh in exchange for their votes in Parliament and that the money that was deposited in the fixed deposits by them came that way!
The case went up to the Supreme Court and Buta Singh was spared of being punished only because the court held that even if there was evidence that the money was arranged by him, there was no connection between that and the manner in which the JMM MPs voted in the Lok Sabha in the confidence motion. In other words, a quid pro quo was not established between the giving-of-money and the voting-by-the-MPs. That was indeed a judgment that put the seal on the hopes, if there was any, that the corrupt men can be sent to jail by way of judicial interventions.
Buta Singh then figured in the Jain Hawala scandal. And Narasimha Rao ordered his exit from the cabinet as it was done with all others who were in the cabinet then. Buta Singh, like the others, quit the Congress, contested the 1996 Lok Sabha elections as an independent from Jalore, his old constituency in Rajastan, and won. He tried becoming a minister in the United Front Government. But the United Front did not need him simply because they had enough MPs in their own parties to become ministers.
Buta Singh did not relent. And he won from Jalore again in 1998 as independent. Atal Behari Vajpayee, though heading a combination that was the largest in the Lok Sabha was still in need of some more MPs to make up a majority for the NDA. And Buta Singh made himself available for Vajpayee; ofcourse for a price. He was sworn in minister on March 19, 1998 along with Vajpayee and others. Buta Singh was given the precious Telecomunications portfolio too. But then, as ill luck would have it, Singh was haunted by the JMM payoffs scandal raising its head. Telecommunication Minister Buta Singh had to quit the cabinet on April 20, 1998, exactly a month after he was sworn in.
I do not remember the date or the month or the year in which Buta Singh returned to the Congress. But then, he had done that and was rewarded with the post of Bihar Governor. In 2005, he played dirty to prevent Nitish Kumar becoming the Chief Minister despite the JD(U)-BJP combine having emerged a single largest combine. He recommended dissolution of the assembly even before it was convened and Buta Singh was chastised by the Supreme Court for having done all that.
Well. It did not matter. He was rewarded again. And this time as Chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes. A constitutional office meant to protect and safeguard the legal rights of the members of the Dalit community. And with his own track record, it is not difficult to know what he could have been doing from that office.
Let me now explain why I went about this exercise of recalling Buta Singh’s political past. The provocation came from the news recently about Buta Singh’s son, Sarobjit Singh, being held by the CBI in a case of demanding bribes from a Nashik based contractor in return for saving that contractor from a case that is pending before his father’s commission. Well, Sarobjit grew up seeing his father; and it is only natural that he resorted to making money from wherever it came from.
posted by Krishna Ananth at
7:19 AM
2 Comments:
This is an excellent critique of Bhuta Singh as a politician. I liked reading it because it was very informative and instructive. You seem to be oscillating between highlighting the positive and negative aspect of Indian democracy in your posts. Very little of ideological position is forthcoming.
Well. I am not too sure as to whether critiquing democracy by itself is an easy thing to do. If my posts serve that purpose, I am happy. And yes, I still feel that the democratic system is the best.
I do not know if ideology is bereft of these... if that is the case, I take it as a positive criticism
Cheers
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