With Vyapam, Another Modi Rival Lands in Crisis

For the last three days I have been attempting to write this column on the Vyapam scam post my conversations with many players and stake-holders from Madhya Pradesh and Delhi. At the risk of giving it a Kafka-esque colour, I must confess it has been an impossibly mystifying case where every day throws up a bizarre, new and often criminal twist in the scam.

Enough has been said, written and investigated about Vyapam in the last few days since the Indian media woke up to the sudden death of 38-year-old journalist Akshay Singh while covering the story for the India Today group. Many, including this journalist, have expressed apprehensions over the deaths that have taken place over the last few years in the case. Can the various deaths in the Vyapam case - which includes witnesses, accused and now a journalist - be a mere coincidence?  

It could well be that there is a conspiracy to silence those who could expose crucial information, but it would be presumptuous and unjustified on the part of both the opposition and commentators to link every possible casualty with the Vyapam scam.

To begin with, it is most amusing to see the Congress party outrage over a scam which saw its genesis in the late 90s. Cases of irregularities in entrance tests conducted by the Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal, responsible for recruitment in government jobs and admissions in educational institutes, started as late as 1996.

The first FIR was filed in the case in 2000 when Digvijaya Singh led the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh. The Congress was in power in the state till 2003, so it would be factually incorrect of the party to wash its hands off the case. Is the Congress complicit? If local ministers and investigating officials are to be believed, in a scam which involved cops, bureaucrats, politicians and middlemen, members of both major political parties played a role.

Now for the BJP, which is in power both at the Centre and at the state, and faces a similar predicament as was experienced by the Congress during the Adarsh scam in Maharashtra which forced the resignation of Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and named many senior BJP and Congress leaders as beneficiaries. But the Madhya Pradesh scam assumes great sinister proportions because of the spate of deaths, and this is why the Congress' demand for the resignation of Chouhan as Chief Minister gains credence. Keep in mind that whistleblowers and some witnesses fault Chouhan and his administration for failing adequately protect them.

To try and grasp the deep complexity of the Vyapam case, it is essential to understand the internal politics of the BJP and the RSS in Madhya Pradesh. Shivraj Singh Chouhan, an LK Advani loyalist, told this journalist in 2013 that Narendra Modi was not the only contender for the post of Prime Minister, and that the BJP was home to many capable Chief Ministers. The message was clear - Chouhan, as a Chief Minister with a reputation for probity, was in the race too for Prime Ministerial candidate. Such was the rift between Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Modi that when the former was in Gujarat to campaign for the last Assembly election in 2012, it is alleged that very few turned up at the rally as a part of Modi's strategy.

Veteran LK Advani, who has been unabashedly sidelined within the party, had to ensure that Modi's point person in the RSS, Suresh Soni (who is from Madhya Pradesh), did not replace Shivraj Singh Chouhan with Prabhat Jha as the Chief Minister when the BJP won the last state election in November 2013. Prabhat Jha, party in-charge of Madhya Pradesh, had rebelled against Chouhan during that election.

Sources say that another reason for Suresh Soni to push for Chouhan to be replaced with Prabhat Jha was his alleged involvement in the Vyapam scam. Suresh Soni's name figured in the Special Task Force (STF) report in the Vyapam case - he was named by at least two accused according to the report dated December 2013. Newspapers in Bhopal did front page stories on the alleged involvement of the RSS leaders.

Suresh Soni was the second-in-command to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat till last year, when, reportedly because of the taint of the Vyapam case, the RSS top brass replaced Soni with Krishna Gopal as its new pointsman for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In mid-2013 came reports in the media that suggested documents found in a raid by investigators linked Suresh Soni to the scam. 

According to media reports early in 2014, when Lakshmikant Sharma, the former Minister for Higher Education was arrested in connection with Vyapam, he named Suresh Soni as one of the beneficiaries. Newspapers said that a month earlier, in the December 2013 report filed by the STF, Soni had been named by four accused for personally sending in recommendations for candidates to universities in Madhya Pradesh.

This information had not been used by the STF in court. It had clearly been leaked to the media. Sources suggest that state ministers complained to the RSS headquarters that Shivraj Singh Chouhan was responsible, and that he was summoned for an explanation by the RSS. At the end of 2013, STF stated to media persons that there was no mention of RSS names in the report it had presented in court. 

In the last two months, new leaks to the media targeted officers seen as close to Shivraj Singh Chouhan. It is alleged by reliable sources that Advani's controversial statement last month that an Emergency even today cannot be ruled out because "the forces that can crush democracy are stronger" - read as an attack on Modi - was reportedly the result of an intervention sought by two of his proteges - Sushma Swaraj and Shivraj Singh Chauhan - who were confronting the scandals of Lalitgate and Vyapam.

Another Union Minister, Uma Bharti, who has made remarks undermining Chouhan's assertions of an impartial Vyapam investigation is reportedly upset that her name has been retained in the STF's report whereas those of RSS functionaries have been deleted.

Shivraj Singh Chouhan, unlike his contemporary from Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje, does not enjoy great support amongst his MLAs. Home Minister Babulal Gaur - an old rival - has placed all blame at the Chief Minister's doorstep. 

Irrespective of the consequences, the Vyapam episode has weakened the position of yet another Modi rival. But politics apart, the case as it stands today has become a grave threat for whistleblowers and witnesses. And for the right reasons, the buck should stop with Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

(Rana Ayyub is an award-winning investigative journalist and political writer. She is working on a book on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which will be published later this year.)

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