Last fortnight this column pointed out that the BJP and the Congress had the same poll message: "Their party is more criminal than our party". After the poll this was vindicated by the exertions of BJP legislators in Raipur. The skill and daring of their sting operation against Ajit Jogi would have done the Tehelka team proud. They will not face prosecution like the Tehelka journalists did, of course. Nor face the kind of CBI probe that the alleged perpetrators of the Judeo sting operation, Ajit Jogi and son, are facing. BJP MP Baliram Kashyap has said that L.K. Advani, Venkaiah Naidu and Arun Jaitley planned the sting operation. Will they be investigated?
Law minister Jaitley demanded that Ajit Jogi be immediately probed and arrested for having attempted to bribe BJP legislators. But in the case of Dilip Singh Judeo, the PM and DPM made him their star poll campaigner after he was caught on camera accepting a bribe. Till the moment of writing this, Judeo has been neither arrested nor questioned by the CBI. One reckless CBI official who sought to question him was promptly transferred. The government's list of persons deserving prosecution is, to put it mildly, highly selective.
The frenzy with which BJP and Congress leaders are alleging criminality in the other party is understandable. They are busy preparing for the next general election which will decide who governs India. They might also ponder on whether there will be anything left to govern by the time of the next election.
Forget Chhattisgarh. Four senior police officials in another state are under arrest for shielding organised crime. A chief minister in the south will face criminal court proceedings against herself in a neighbouring state because the Supreme Court ruled out the possibility of a fair trial in her own state. Another chief minister sermonises before audiences in other states while half a dozen cases have been transferred out of his own state because of a similar Supreme Court ruling. Two ex-chief ministers and the current chief minister of a third state face corruption and defamation charges in court. One is in jail while others are on bail. One may go on from state to state listing members of the ruling class—politicians, judges, policemen and officials— arraigned before courts for breaking the law.
All this is happening because politicians, like mafia dons in Chicago, are destroying each other through gang wars. So stop worrying about being ruled by godfathers. There's God in his heaven too.
