Let Lalit return, with the truth

Phew! What a lot of unnecessary dramabaazi this week has seen! Look at the multistar cast — the main players, the cameos, the sidekicks, the comedians, the villains, the amazing twists and turns. A more action-packed script would be hard to find. This is the real thing. The ultimate blockbuster. Hum Aapke Hain Kaun — Part 2. If only the lead actors had been better looking!

Even as I key this column, there are leaks and tip-offs rolling in by the minute. Lalit Modi, our very own desi whistleblower or Julian Assange with a darker mop of hair, is sitting pretty in London/Ibiza/Rio/Mykonos/Venice and tweeting away. It is being said a smart publisher wants to bring out a quickie with just the emoticons in those countless tweets. Lalit Modi today is dominating mind and media space and scaring the daylights out of anybody who has ever been within a five-kilometre radius of the former czar of the Indian Premier League. The man’s meticulously kept records of every encounter, phone call, email exchange... just about any form of communication, are so staggering, it’s no wonder so many people are diving for cover. It’s quite comical. Some say they met him for 15 minutes. Others call him a “brother” to his face and later deny knowing the man. But, in today’s times, there really is no place to hide! Lalit knows it. His targets know it, too.

“Is this the way to treat friends?” singed victims are asking. Errr — yes! If, by “friends” you mean those who were around smelling money, opportunities and fun times while the going was good. If they now accuse Lalit Modi of “betraying” them, nobody is interested in their collective whinging. This is how it goes when the stakes are as high and the end-game as dangerous.

Those badly hit by Lalit Modi’s startling revelations also know they have zero cover left. Lalit has pretty much stripped the lot naked. It’s possible he is hanging on to more dirt and may unleash the final instalment at the right time. Political pundits are holding their breaths and wondering when that time will come. For if there is still some lethal material left in Lalit’s armoury, it can only be a devastating political nuke that will take down everybody. That includes the government in power.

Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje can relax. Lalit Modi has done his worst and they have survived. Rajnath Singh has astutely handled the maha dhamaka that had the potential of blowing up in several prominent faces. As any shrewd politician knows, the trick is to buy time and wait for the storm to blow over. Ms Raje is sitting tight, as she can well afford to. She is far from dispensable. If she is coerced into stepping down, there will be an open revolt in Rajasthan — she is worshipped by the people and they willingly acknowledge the good work she has done for the state. If she stays, that will be a tough one for Narendra Modi to “manage” — it will prove what his critics are saying — he is soft on corruption within his own party.

Whichever way this pans out, citizens are justifiably disgusted. This is not what they had voted for. Cleverly enough, Lalit Modi has both parties in the same corner. He has enough dirt to dish out on all leaders — the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and, of course, the Bharatiya Janata Party. With Ms Swaraj and Ms Raje on the backfoot, and so many walking around wounded, who the hell is running the government? Let me take a guess — no one? It is on autopilot, running itself, with the babus rejoicing and gloating now that the reins are back in their hands.

Take Lalit and his target practice out of the picture, and the story is still bad. Smriti Irani is back in the dock, forced to clarify a “typographical” error about her educational degree. Then there is Pankaja Munde in Maharashtra battling charges of corruption over the sanctioning of contracts. Ms Munde is either super-efficient at clearing government tenders amounting to Rs 208 crore in under 10 minutes, or... or... your guess is as good as mine. Maharashtra mantris have been notoriously and brazenly corrupt for years. But Ms Munde’s indiscretion is being cited as a huge black mark against a government that constantly boasts in self-righteous terms about its policy of zero tolerance for corrupt practices. Going by the snowballing of charges against four prominent women from the party, this appears not just hypocritical but paradoxical.

In such a volatile and highly combustible environment, it’s hard to predict anybody’s next move. But one thing is for sure — whatever that next move is, it has to be Narendra Modi’s. He cannot afford to hide behind studied silence. Or Arun Jaitley who has jauntily declared that nobody in the party is “tainted”. Achcha?

Citizens waited patiently for Prime Minister Modi to finish demonstrating his prowess at yoga asanas. People also considerately gave Ms Swaraj enough time to recover from her jet lag and say something about the controversy. Anger is bound to build up if the top leadership continues to be evasive. Unless, of course, Ms Swaraj indulges in the oldest political trick in the book and is rushed to hospital for some unnamed medical condition. By the time she emerges this will no longer qualify as “breaking news” and, as we well know, it’s no news unless it is breaking.

This means it will be business as usual for all the main players — Lalit Modi included. There is just one thing for the Prime Minister to do at this tricky point: Get Lalit Modi back to India. Period. The truth may surprise us all.

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