It is not clear whether the Income Tax and Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids on the close aides of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, were connected to the on-going election campaign or were a spillover of investigations into the Augusta Westland scam. A link between the two could not be ruled out, given the well-deserved reputation of Nath for venality.
One of the key money-launderers now in the custody of the ED had mentioned the name of Ratul Puri, a nephew of Nath, for being part of the unholy axis. Therefore, the raids in Delhi, Indore, Bhopal and Goa could be connected to the on-going Augusta Westland investigations or, then, it may not be. Although Puri has denied any role in the Augusta Westland case, the ED is continuing to probe his financial dealings.
The Sunday morning raids could well be linked to the liberal use of cold cash to influence the voters. The raiding parties had got the prior nod of the Election Commission. It would suggest that Nath was a key figure in raising funds for the Congress Party. With the State Government under his control, his capacity to raise money ought to have further improved.
The early morning raids on 50 places connected with Nath and his key aides, one Pravin Kakkar, a former OSD to the chief minister, and Rajendra Miglani, his former adviser, are said to have yielded relatively a small amount of Rs nine crores in cash. Kakkar’s residence and other properties in Indore were searched.
Two of his associates too figured in the raids. Both Kakkar and Miglani had officially resigned from their respective official positions with the chief minister on the eve of the Lok Sabha poll, a fact which further raises suspicion of their involvement in illicit activities of moving funds for the local and central units of the Congress Party. According to reports in a section of the media, the actual amount in black, the leads for which were found in the raids could well run into a couple hundred crores.
Though Nath has sought to brazen it out, describing the raids as part of the ruling party’s vendetta politics, it is hard to give the MP Chief Minister a clean bill of health when it comes to money matters. He has had a deserved reputation for raking it in from the time he first became a minister in the Congress government in the mid-80s.
The fact that the MP Police was dispatched to thwart the IT and ED authorities when they were raiding the premises of one of the suspects at Platinum Plaza in Bhopal underlines the anxiety of the raided. Mercifully, a head-on confrontation was avoided. The raiding party from Delhi was able to conduct the searches without any physical obstruction.
Meanwhile, raids conducted throughout the country in order to prevent the use of cash in elections are said to have yielded a rich haul. IT officers have so far seized cash, drugs, liquor, etc, worth over Rs 1,800 crores in country-wide raids. These raids are coordinated by a senior official of the Election Commission.
According to EC officials, six States were particularly prone to distribute cash for votes. These were- Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. In Tamil Nadu it is common for almost all parties to buy votes with cash or through distribution of household durables.
So far, Rs 154 crores in cash has been seized in the State. Following the raids on Sunday, a delegation of Opposition leaders met the EC to complain against the alleged misuse of the IT and the ED for political purposes. The EC later cautioned that the two agencies should undertake the raids after due diligence and avoid any suggestion of partisanship.
A special cell in the EC under the supervision of a senior officer conducts nation-wide raids to seize black money from candidates and/or associates. And its success comes through in the sizable amount seized ahead of the first of the seven-phase polling.
Regrettably, it is not even a small fraction of the black money that would actually be used by various parties and candidates. And this is true of all major and minor parties. It is hard to eliminate altogether the role of cash in elections, though the EC can be admired for trying to curb it as far as possible.