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COVER STORY: TEHELKA
Desperately Seeking loopholes
BJP and Samata Party find discrepancies in Tehelka's
charges. But it's just details.
It took a week to
come. And when it did no one was quite sure the Government's counter-offensive
had succeeded. In a bid to take some of the heat off former Samata Party
president Jaya Jaitly by questioning Tehelka's credibility, the BJP and
its ally came together to point out errors in the dotcom's investigation.
The story so far: Tehelka alleges there is a
nexus between defence dealers, politicians and army brass. It releases
a tape showing its undercover reporter Mathew Samuel meeting Jaitly at
the then defence minister George Fernandes' house on December 28. Tehelka
says Rs 2 lakh was paid to someone in the room, someone who the transcript
claims is Sreenivasa Prasad, minister of state for consumer affairs and
Samata Party MP. The tape is telecast, hell breaks loose and two days
later, Jaitly and Fernandes quit.
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STANDING
THEIR GROUND: Jaitly (left) has denied Tejpal's charges
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By asking that the money
be sent to Prasad, Jaya Jaitly signalled her acceptance. In principal
she had no objection to taking it.
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In Part II, the accused hit back, saying no money
was given to anyone at the meeting. Defence deals were not discussed,
only textiles and information technology. And-here's the sting-Prasad
was not even in Delhi, leave alone in that room, on that day. "The
whole story is a fabrication," says M. Venkaiah Naidu, Union minister
for rural development. "It puts a question mark on their credibility."
Tehelka's response? It issues fresh visual evidence-shot from a secret
camera in a briefcase left outside the meeting room. Samuel is seen taking
money out of the briefcase and wrapping it in a newspaper.
So where did the money go and did Tehelka goof
up on Prasad? "Jaitly pointed to a man on her right and said 'Send
the money to Sreenivasa Prasad'. Samuel assumed that man was Prasad and
gave him the money," says Tehelka's editor-in-chief Tarun J. Tejpal.
But "send"? Doesn't it imply Prasad
was not there at all? "Mathew was nervous and in the confusion he
just handed over the money to the man he assumed was Prasad," says
Tejpal.
The Samata Party doesn't buy the argument. "No
money was paid to anyone," says Railways Minister Nitish Kumar, adding
there was no mysterious man that Jaitly pointed out to. "Why is there
no visual of him? Is he Mr India that he's invisible?" he asks. Aniruddha
Bahal, who led Tehelka's investigation, scoffs at the charge. "We
were not shooting in a studio. We don't know who this guy is and since
he was at an angle we could not get a visual." Tehelka says the objections
over the factual errors is "splitting hair". The relevant fact
is that Jaitly had signalled her acceptance of the money by asking it
to be sent to Prasad. In principle she had no objection to either taking
it or meeting arms dealers in the defence minister's house. It took her
party over a week to point out Tehelka's error in saying Prasad was in
the room.
Yet, it's just as hard to deny a degree of sloppiness
on Tehelka's part. First the controversy-begun by Samuel himself-hinting
at further tapes that indicted Home Minister L.K. Advani. When the BJP
threatened to sue, Tejpal had to clarify that no such tapes existed. "There
were a lot of loose allegations which had no substance and were edited
out," he says. Other errors have also been pointed out: R.K. Gupta's
claim that he was an RSS trustee could have been cross-checked to reveal
there is no such post. And by repeating R.K. Jain's obvious ignorance
of past defence deals, Tehelka only showed up its own skimpy research.
Tehelka says it submitted proposals through
senior section officer P. Sashi to sell non-existent hand-held thermal
cameras to Joint Secretary Ranjit Issar, Major-General P.S.K. Choudhary,
additional director-general (weapons and equipment), and Lt-General J.S.
Dhillon, master-general (ordnance). It says it has receipts for these
proposals and has forwarded these and the proposals to the army's court
of inquiry.
The transcript says Major-General S.P. Murgai,
who retired as additional director-general, quality assurance, told Tehelka
he had picked up a trial evaluation letter. But before Tehelka could lay
its hands on it, its cover blew.
The veracity of Tehelka's claims will now be
tested by the inquiry. However, there's no denying the audacity of the
high-risk operation and revelations of how soft and ugly the underbelly
of our Establishment can be. A besieged Government seems to be seeking
refuge in Tehelka's errors. Those, unfortunately, are not too hard to
find. But Bahal says, "It's easy to pick holes. Ultimately the image
of Bangaru Laxman taking cash is what is going to stick." For a very
long time.
-Namita Bhandare
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METRO TODAY
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