On Laloo Prasad Yadav’s current troubles with the Election Commission regarding the model code of conduct, the UPA government has this to say: that Yadav has not been pronounced to be guilty yet and, in fact, he is yet to submit his explanation to the EC; that he has been called to account as the leader of a political party in Bihar, not as minister in the Union Cabinet, and that, therefore, the principle of collective responsibility cannot be invoked here. The House, the government has advised Parliament, can but await the EC’s decision. Something in these arguments smacks of a legalese pared severely to the bone. The government’s evasion of a position on the FIR registered by a constitutional body against a minister and ally, its lobbing of the matter into the EC’s court, is too neat by half. The reality is untidy. The EC’s verdict is not yet in, but surely the UPA cannot pretend that this is about the EC’s verdict alone. The charges against Yadav are in the public domain and they have kicked up some political dust. This matter, basically, has to do with the accountability, or lack of it, of ministers and political leaders in respect of their adherence to public norms of political morality, justiciable as well as non-justiciable. The model code of conduct is merely one part of this picture. Yadav is not just in the EC’s dock; a questioning public can hold him answerable as well. The argument that it is a matter to do with Yadav, RJD chief, and not Yadav, UPA minister, is political hairsplitting bordering on schizophrenia. Surely the borders of the republic of Bihar are not quite so impermeable. The UPA cannot distance itself from an act of impropriety committed in Patna by pointing to the city’s distance from New Delhi. The other arguments — that worse things have been done and forgiven before, by Laloo himself, or by members of the BJP/NDA (remember Lalji Tandon?) — are too cynical to merit attention. What is clear is this: the UPA cannot skirt or delay taking a position on the controversy. And in the last instance, even in the coalition age, the buck stops with the prime minister. Parliament is in session. Manmohan Singh’s government must use the forum to spell out its position.
