The Narendra Modi government’s artless political responses to the disquieting disclosures about the ₹11,400-crore fraud on the Punjab National Bank, perpetrated by celebrity diamantaire Nirav Modi and his jeweller-uncle Mehul Choksi, are revealing in the extreme. Barely before the full contours of the scandal and the modus operandi had been made public, the BJP lined up its big guns to take potshots at the erstwhile UPA regime, particularly the Congress. But rather than signal combativeness, the BJP’s spokespersons channelled a defensiveness that points to a party that has been rattled to its core.
The defensiveness has its roots in the realisation that the scandal, unfolding barely a year ahead of general elections, has the potential to erode the remnants of any political goodwill that Modi may have once commanded on the strength of his cultivated image as a muscular warrior against corruption. That narrative was, somewhat counter-intuitively, strengthened by the demonetisation move in November 2016: the BJP had benefited politically from the perception, however misplaced, that the note-ban had inflicted much more pain on the rich than on the poor. More generally, Modi had once projected himself as someone who was not only personally incorruptible but who also has a low tolerance threshold for corruption: “ na khaoonga, na khane doonga ” he had roared. That lofty claim is today the object of daily ridicule in the political arena — and in the parallel universe of meme-driven social media commentary.
There is, of course, some merit in the claim that the mechanics of the PNB scam, centred around the issuance of Letters of Understanding, date back to a time when the UPA was in power. But after four years in power, the Modi government is running out of alibis to account for its own regulatory and oversight failings. The shrillness of the BJP’s political response to the fraud revelations appears to testify to a growing realisation within the party that the narrative on corruption has turned against it.
Venky Vembu Associate Editor