Natwar episode : Isolation complete despite sound and fury,Indian Politics, News Analysis, India News Online

Former External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh continues to rage against the Congress, especially Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but he is increasingly getting isolated with no party willing to pull out the chestnuts from the fire for him. It was a bad week for the former Minister starting with tabling of the Justice R.S. Pathak Inquiry Authority report on Monday, August 7, which clearly brought out that his close support to his son Jagat Singh and his acquaintance Andaleeb Sehgal gave Iraqi authorities the impression that Natwar Singh was the principal actor in the entire project to procure oil from Iraq under the UN oil for food programme.

Natwar Singh’s attempt to hit back at the Congress by seeking to move a privilege motion against the Prime Minister in the Rajya Sabha backfired with the party suspending him from the primary membership of the Congress on the charge that he misused his position by helping his son and Andaleeb Sehgal secure Iraqi oil contracts while keeping the party in the dark. The decision was taken by the AICC Disciplinary Committee chaired by general secretary A.K. Antony which met in New Delhi on the night of Tuesday, August 8. Antony and senior party leader Pranab Mukherjee said later that Natwar Singh was also found guilty of carrying out propaganda against the party during the past many days. He has been served a show cause notice asking him why he should not be expelled from the party and given two-weeks’ time to send a response.

Natwar Singh misused position : Pathak report

The Pathak Authority report, tabled in Parliament, says that at the heart of the controversy surrounding Natwar Singh are three letters written by him to the then Iraqi Oil Minister Amer Mohammad Rasheed. All the letters, written between January and August 2001, have reference to Sehgal being described as a cousin of his son Jagat Singh, who was then general secretary of the youth wing of the Congress. In the first letter of January 22, 2001, Natwar Singh admitted knowing Sehgal and his company Hamdaan Exports for many years and “he enjoys my full support and confidence.”

The letter “demonstrates that Natwar Singh utilised his presence in Iraq not merely for the purpose of representing the Congress party on a goodwill mission but also took the opportunity of lending his assistance in the procurement of the oil allocation to Andaleeb Sehgal who accompanied him on the visit to the Oil Minister,” the report said.

The Pathak Inquiry Authority considered the January 30, 2001 letter as one of the most crucial pieces of evidence.

Relying upon the letter of SOMO’s Executive Director, the Pathak Authority concluded that in the eyes of the “Iraqi authorities, the intended beneficiary of the contract was Natwar Singh of the Indian Congress party. Had Natwar Singh not met the Iraqi Oil Minister on January 22, 2001 when he visited Baghdad, there would have been practically no possibility of Hamdaan Exports obtaining the contract. These allocations were political allocations for which the primary consideration was that the person at whose behest the contract was being allocated was friendly to the people of Iraq and sympathetic to their cause.”

The report referred to a meeting with the Iraqi Oil Minister where Natwar Singh, his son and Sehgal were present and no other member of the Congress delegation was present during its Baghdad visit between January 18 and 24, 2001. “It is apparent that the meeting of Natwar Singh with the Iraqi Oil Minister carried great significance. That can be judged from the fact that SOMO opened its doors to Jagat Singh and Andaleeb Sehgal the very next day....,” it said.

No evidence against Congress

In the Action Taken Report (ATR) filed with the Inquiry Authority findings in Parliament, the Government accepted the conclusions reached by Justice Pathak Authority, which found no evidence of the Congress involvement in the transactions for oil contracts obtained from Iraq.

The Government said it had decided to forward the Pathak report “in its entirety” to the Enforcement Directorate, Central Board of Direct Taxes, and the Central Board of Excise and Customs to be treated as information and for “such action as may appear to them warranted under law.”

The three-page ATR agreed with the findings of the Pathak Inquiry Authority, which indicted the former External Affairs Minister, K. Natwar Singh, for his role in “influencing and facilitating” procurement of oil contracts. “There is no material to show that Natwar Singh derived any financial or other personal benefit from the contracts.

“The Inquiry Authority has found no evidence that the Congress party was involved in the contract and that it derived any benefit at all from the contract. Indeed, there is nothing to show that the Congress party had anything to do with the contracts M/09/54 and M/10/57,” the ATR said.

It noted that there “is not a shred of evidence to link the Congress party to the transactions, and on examination of all the documents and material before it, the Inquiry Authority believed that no wrongdoing can be attributed to the Congress party.”

The Authority submitted a 118-page report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on August 3.

Pathak ignored vital documents : Natwar Singh

Natwar Singh has criticised the Justice Pathak Inquiry Authority for what he called ignoring the report of the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations on the authenticity and veracity of the Volcker Report. In a statement released to the media on Wednesday, August 9, he alleged that a malicious campaign had been mounted against him over the Volcker report. He said Justice Pathak Inquiry has “in its own convoluted way totally discredited the basis of Volcker’s allegations.”

In his statement, Natwar Singh has highlighted three points made by Harsh Vardhan Shringla, Minister, Permanent Mission of India - first, “the Independent Inquiry Committee is headed by Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, whose inclination would be to discredit the opponents of U.S. policy,” second, “no evidence has been cited and no documentation given on most of the allegations made;” and, three, “due process was not observed because none of the non-commercial entities were asked, through PMI, to respond to the allegations.”

Singh said: “I wonder why this vital document has been deliberately ignored.” He, therefore, wanted to “place [it] before the people of India.”

After his suspension from the Congress, Singh was quoted by the news agencies as having said: “ I will write to the Guinness Book of World Records. This is the only Prime Minister who has not even won a municipality election and has become the Prime Minister of India.”

Only half the truth revealed : BJP

BJP spokesperson Arun Jaitley has said that the Pathak Inquiry Authority has unravelled only half the truth relating to the oil for food scandal. Speaking to the media on Monday, August 7, he did not agree, however, with senior BJP leader L.K. Advani’s remark that Natwar Singh had been made a scapegoat. He said Justice Pathak had inquired into some of the subjects he was to inquire into, while many more were not looked into. He said the BJP’s grievance is that while the money given as commission had been traced to Switzerland, after that the money trail had not been followed.

The CPI(M) on its part demanded that the Government conduct a special probe on the oil transactions and surcharges paid by Reliance Industries in the Iraqi oil for food programme.

Congress Ministers criticise Natwar Singh

Congress leaders have countered Natwar Singh’s criticism of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Joining issue with Natwar Singh, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said it was time for civil society to start a movement to get rid of politicians who used the system and then abused it when the system caught up with them. He said Natwar Singh had chosen to be in the company of the BJP, which had cast aspersions on the institution of Lok Sabha Speaker and would not allow Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to participate in a debate. Congress spokesman and Minister Anand Sharma said Singh’s comments against senior party leaders had no credibility. “His remarks and language used about the Prime Minister are discourteous and regrettable,” Sharma said.

Commenting on Singh’s companions in Janata Dal (United), the Samajwadi Party and the BJP, Sharma said it was an “unholy and opportunistic” alliance.

As for his remarks on foreign policy, Sharma said Singh was neither the architect nor the custodian of India’s independent foreign policy.

Uproar in Parliament over report leakage

The opposition stalled proceedings in both Houses of Parliament on Monday, August 7, after the tabling of the Pathak Inquiry Authority report and the action taken report on the issue of the clean chit given to the Congress and the report’s leakage. Opposition leaders described the report as well as the ATR as a sham designed to protect the Congress. No business could be transacted in the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House, but the Lok Sabha passed the Banking Companies and Financial Institutions (Amendment) Bill in the midst of the din. NDA members resorted to slogans specifically targeting Congress president Sonia Gandhi and seeking an apology from the Prime Minister.

The transaction of Government business ‘forcibly’, as the BJP described it, led to the NDA deciding to boycott the Lok Sabha. At a meeting, the NDA decided that it would not participate in the daily meetings in the Speaker’s Chamber, and they would sit in front of Mahatma Gandhi’s statute in Parliament House complex with gags on their mouths to indicate that they were not being allowed to have their say and they would not sign registers to claim their allowances for attending Parliament.

Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee later wrote to NDA chairman Atal Bihari Vajpayee asking him to reconsider the decision to boycott House proceedings. He said the participation of the Opposition was essential for parliamentary democracy. Chatterjee also wrote to all members of the Lok Sabha seeking their cooperation in the running of the House.

An anguished Speaker made a simple appeal on Friday, August 11, to the Opposition to end the boycott, “do not prolong this painful chapter.” Somnath Chatterjee allowed the leaders of the House and the Opposition to speak on the issue, but maintained silence himself. While an uneasy calm returned to the Lok Sabha, Vajpayee’s letter and name did not figure on the record with both leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee and leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani referring to it without divulging the contents. Mukherjee and Advani had met earlier in the day to resolve the issue.

Observers say that it is a truce that saw no real element of compromise. Both sides reiterated positions that they have held outside the House, allowing business to be conducted, but with the warring parties still at daggers drawn. Acknowledging that the Speaker-NDA ties were far from smooth, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi said, “the impasse in the House is over, but outside, the war would continue.”

Later in the day, various parties who together have a strength of about 400 members in the House, in a statement expressed deep anguish at former Prime Minister Vajpayee’s tone and tenor of the letter. Mukherjee, who raised the letter issue in the House, said it casts “aspersions on the impartiality in the official conduct” of the Speaker and that several parties had expressed “deep anguish” over its “tone and contents.”

The Minister said the letter was “more painful because it emanates from the pen of a person who himself struggled to uphold the dignity of the House over decades and is known for his commitment to Parliamentary values. The Speaker is more of an institution than a person and any aspersions on the keystone of Parliamentary democracy is an indictment upon all its constituents.”

The NDA adopted a resolution to stand by Vajpayee’s letter. “The points to which he has drawn attention deserve deep reflection - by all parts of the House, including the Speaker,” it said. The NDA will neither offer an apology nor withdraw the letter.

In the House, Advani also defended Vajpayee, saying the letter did not cast any ‘aspersions’ or show any ‘disrespect’ to the chair. It was an advice from a senior statesman to the chair of the House and should be read as a pointer for all parliamentarians.

In a related development, Rajya Sabha chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat rejected as “not admissible” Natwar Singh’s notice of breach of privilege against the Office of the Prime Minister. Shekhawat said though the leak of Pathak inquiry authority report before it was tabled in Parliament was very unfortunate and deplorable, the matter did not involve any breach of privilege of the House. The chairman, however, did not give any ruling on the privilege notices on the same issue given by members of the BJP, the Samajwadi Party, the All India Anna DMK, the Telugu Desam and the Janata Dal United.

Natwar’s bid to make statement fails

On Friday, Natwar Singh tried to make an explanation in the Rajya Sabha on his indictment in the oil for food scam, but did not succeed. The House was adjourned twice amid uproar as Opposition members demanded that Natwar Singh be allowed to have his say. Earlier, Deputy Chairman K. Rehman Khan said that Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat was still examining his notice given under Rule 241 for making a personal explanation.

Blows hot and cold

Rebuffed by the Congress leadership, Natwar Singh continues to blow hot and cold. On Friday, August 11, Natwar Singh desisted from calling Manmohan Singh “a weak Prime Minister”, but said that India needed what he called “a decisive, forceful and resolute leadership at the current juncture.”

Contradicting a BBC report that his draft speech sent to the Rajya Sabha secretariat blamed Sonia Gandhi for India becoming “a slave” to the US foreign policy, Natwar attributed to the Congress chief the qualities he did not see in the Prime Minister. “Please repudiate the BBC report that is 100 per cent incorrect. Sonia is a strong, resolute and forceful leader and that is what India needs,” he said.

“I’ll never say anything against Sonia. She has been nice to me. Her family has been nice to me. I’m not an ungrateful person.”

But how does he explain the company he has lately been keeping with known Sonia detractors like the SP’s Amar Singh and the BJP’s Yashwant Sinha ?” “That is restricted to the Indo-US nuclear deal about which Sinha knows more than what I do,” he clarified. In the context of the Pathak report, he confirmed that his recommendation letters to Iraqi authorities for Andaleeb Sehgal did not have Sonia’s prior clearance. “But I explained to her the circumstances in which I wrote.”

Natwar Singh asserted that he was dropped from the Union Cabinet under American pressure. Asked about reports of his joining some other party, he said there was no question of his quitting the Congress despite offers from other parties.

Natwar Singh isolated

Observers say that after his complete isolation in the Congress, Natwar Singh also appears to be losing his new-found partners in other parties. The BJP and the Left parties appear to have decided to steer clear of Natwar Singh. His most staunch backer, the Samajwadi Party has also thought it fit to distance itself from him. SP general secretary Amar Singh said in New Delhi on August 12, “Let me make it very clear that the Natwar Singh issue is the internal matter of the Congress party.”

Observers say that opposition parties may have a common cause in attacking the government on the Volcker issue, but the newly forged camaraderie among their leaders appears to be dissipating. One major reason for such a situation could be Natwar Singh’s persistent refusal to go after Congress president, Sonia Gandhi over the Iraqi oil scam issue. For the SP, BJP and JD(U), Singh would not be of “much use” if he does not target Sonia Gandhi even though he has taken on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

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