Agency raids glue to bring opposition parties together
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made a key promise when entering the South Block: “Na Khaunga, Na Khane Doonga”. It meant he would neither be corrupt nor allow anybody to be corrupt. The PM, who had stormed into office in 2014 riding the wave of public anger against the alleged 2G and coal scams, promised a clean administration.
To his credit, barring some unproven allegations, his government has remained unscathed on this count to date. Given the BJP’s wide administrative network at the Centre and in many states, and opposition allegations of the party’s public functionaries escaping scrutiny, the latter have managed to largely remain untarnished. But the frequent raids by enforcement agencies on opposition leaders have upped the ante against the Centre. By some accounts, the Enforcement Directorate raids have seen a four-fold increase since 2014 and nearly the same applies to the raids and searches of the CBI and income tax department.
Opposition parties, divided on various issues, are united on what they have termed as the ‘misuse’ of the enforcement agencies. Nine opposition parties wrote a joint letter to the prime minister accusing the government of pursuing ‘vendetta politics through misuse of central agencies’. The letter was written immediately after the then Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia was arrested in the Delhi liquor scam. Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLC K Kavitha, daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, has also been named in the liquor scam. The fact that the largest opposition party, Congress, did not sign the joint letter to the PM led to a spat between Kavitha and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh.
The verbal duel between the two leaders notwithstanding, their parties are on the same page on the issue of raids by central agencies on opposition leaders. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had recently lamented that 95 per cent of raids conducted by the central agencies have been on members of opposition parties. The opposition parties are divided over various issues. The AAP, TMC and BRS are bitterly opposed to the Congress, both over alliances in the states and on the question of leading the opposition in the 2024 election. Two clear blocks of opposition parties are emerging before the next general elections. One includes BRS, AAP and TMC, and the other has Congress, DMK and Left parties. Despite differences within the opposition ranks, the actions of central agencies are emerging as a potential glue to bind the entire opposition together and bring them on a single platform.