Losing friends and gaining foes

Last month, it was the Ides of December once again for him. As Guwahati experienced one of its coldest winters, Mahanta found himself in deep trouble. He had been accused of being involved in the multi-crore letters of credit (LoC) scandal in the state veterinary department, and the CBI has sought the Union government’s sanction to prosecute him.

Ironically, it was primarily at Mahanta’s instance that the CBI was handed over the investigations into the multi-crore scandal. As the leader of the Opposition between ’91 and ’96, Mahanta campaigned actively to get the then Congress regime to call in the CBI to handle the job.

Clearly, he had not anticipated that Hiteshwar Saikia, one of the major beneficiaries of the scam, and one who allegedly even requisitioned his official vehicle to transport trunk-loads of currency notes from Sibsagar to Guwahati, would pass away, and that the scandal would sully his own image in the process.

Mahanta may have been in politics for 20 years and interacted with as many as nine prime ministers including Indira Gandhi, but his vast experience has hardly shaped him into a shrewd politician. He has faltered many a time, and the LoC-nexus drama has badly exposed his lack of political panache.

He could have learnt a thing or two from his Bihar counterpart and one-time partner in the United Front. Not only did Laloo Prasad Yadav have the verve to dodge the long arm of the law for as long as possible, he used the fodder scam to buttress his political base. Mahanta, in contrast, now finds himself in a mess. It is true that he is not the most important beneficiary of the multi-crore LoC scandal.

The CBI’s final report, which is yet to be submitted to the Guwahati High Court which is monitoring the probe following complaints of delay, may at best reveal that some persons directly involved in the scam had either distributed corrugated iron sheets and drafts to some clubs and organisations in Mahanta’s constituency, or that he had travelled to Delhi along with some of his party members on tickets allegedly paid for by one of the scamsters. But this is more than enough to damn him. Since, by law, what he did amounts to corruption, ordinary people are unlikely to be convinced by arguments that Mahanta had only indirectly benefited from the scam, as his party, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) has been trying to make out.

It’s true that Mahanta has matured over the years as a politician. But it’s also true that he has repeatedly failed in handling situations that had a direct bearing on his career. Several senior party colleagues have deserted him over the years. Beginning with the charismatic Dinesh Goswami, Bijoya Chakravarty, David Ledger, Bhadreswar Tanti and Saifuddin Ahmed, all former MPs of the AGP, have left him. The split in his party, caused by his one-time confidant — Bhrigu Kumar Phukan — parting ways with him, is still a sore point, with Phukan now stepping up his campaign against him.

The AASU, which Mahanta had shaped through his leadership, has turned against him, as also the Asom Jatiyabadi Yuva Chatra Parishad (AJYCP). It was the AJYCP that had partnered the AASU in the Assam agitation, which had in turn seen the birth of the AGP in October 1985.

The Assam Sahitya Sabha, the State’s highest literary body and the most influential organisation among its intellectuals, too, has become increasingly critical of Mahanta. It evidently disliked the manner in which Mahanta has handled the influx and insurgency problems.

The Sadau Asom Karamchari Parishad (SAKP) is yet another group which has lost confidence in the Chief Minister, largely because of the inability of the AGP-led government to offer a better pay packet to the state’s 4.5 lakh government employees. And the Tata-ULFA nexus controversy, although it provided Mahanta with an opportunity to assert that he had meant business when he had talked of stopping the flow of funds to militant groups, did not really help shore up his position.

But what has really worked against him is his handling of the LoC scandal. As the CBI began closing in on him, he began complaining loudly that the CBI was being unfair to him even though he was an important member of the United Front. Worse was his allegation that the CBI, and particularly its director R. C. Sharma, was in the pocket of the Congress.

Mahanta has also drawn flak for filing a petition in the Guwahati Court complaining mala fide action by the CBI against him, although the High Court had assured him that it would look into the issue once the probing agency filed its final report on January 6. This move on his part is being viewed as extremely ill-advised.

But Mahanta seems to have lost the capacity to listen to criticism. He justifies his action by insisting that he is being politically targeted through the LoC scandal. The net result, however, is that more and more people are beginning to believe that he is knee-deep, if not neck-deep, in the scam. Public memory is short. Saikia is all but forgotten, and Mahanta becomes the ready target of their ire.

Unfortunately, he does not even have the quick repartee and everlasting flow of banter which Laloo Prasad Yadav uses to handle the media. Assam’s Chief Minister is a shy and hesitant personality. As the noose slowly tightens around him, he has only one phrase with which to defend himself: "Let us see."