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STATES: HARYANA
Going By The Laws
Om Prakash Chautala has launched a flurry of criminal
cases against his opponents in what is being seen as a political vendetta
By Ramesh Vinayak
May 2, 2001: Karan Singh Dalal, three-time
MLA, Haryana unit president of the Republican Party of India and known
Chautala baiter, is booked by the state Vigilance Bureau under a string
of criminal sections of the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act.
May 8: Senior Congress leader Bachan Singh
Arya is booked under Sections 467, 468 and 471 of the IPC and under the
Prevention of Corruption Act.
May 10: Ripudaman Singh, grandson of former
Haryana Vidhan Sabha Speaker Harminder Singh Chatha, whose order on disqualification
of three MLAs in 1991 had unseated the then Chautala government, arrested
in Kurukshetra under Section 21 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic
Substances Act for allegedly possessing 3 gm of smack.
May 16: The Narnaul Police register an fir
against former minister Kailash Sharma in a case of fraud.
May 22: Deputy Speaker of the Assembly and
Haryana Vikas Party leader Ved Pal by high court to present himself before
the Superintendent of Police, Vigilance Bureau, at Chandigarh on May 18
in connection with a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
These are only recent
examples of Haryana's opposition leaders reeling under criminal cases
slapped by the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) Government. At the last
count, almost three dozen former ministers and MLAs had been booked under
crimes ranging from murder and extortion to misuse of authority and corruption,
all in less than two years since Om Prakash Chautala formed the government.
The chief minister justifies the rash of criminal cases against opposition
politicians as a fallout of his commitment to expose and punish corrupt
politicians of the previous regimes and rein in lawless elements having
political clout. "They are only being made to pay for their past
sins," he says.
But the opposition parties are crying foul,
accusing the INLD Government of brazenly resorting to "politics of
vendetta". "Having failed on all fronts of governance, Chautala
has unleashed a criminal witch-hunt against his political enemies,"
charges former Congress chief minister Bhajan Lal.
Most of those facing Chautala's ire are ministers
or MLAs of the previous Haryana Vikas Party-BJP regime. Soon after INLD's
return to power, former chief minister Bansi Lal and his son were the
first to be targeted by the Vigilance Bureau which booked them under the
Prevention of Corruption Act." Chautala is wreaking vengeance through
trumped up cases to finish his opponents," says Bansi Lal, who, named
in two firs, has obtained anticipatory bail.
The vigilance probes and legal action against
the former ministers/legislators is part of Chautala's strategy to discredit
his political opponents and lend weight to his anti-corruption rhetoric.
The Government says there is no political persecution. "The Government
is only expediting the action on complaints against political figures
to meet its commitment to the anti-corruption agenda," says Haryana
Advocate-General Surya Kant. "The harsh steps are only aimed at establishing
the faith of the public in the rule of law."
However, Chautala's legal offensive seems to
have gone overboard, exposing him to allegations of being vindictive.
As part of its carefully-crafted sue-and-silence strategy, the INLD Government
has not only dug up the old cases of corruption against political rivals
but has also been discreetly orchestrating public complaints against them
to create grounds for criminal cases. Take, for instance, the case of
former Congress revenue minister Anand Singh Dangi, who had proved to
be Chautala's nemesis in the infamous Meham episode of the early 1990s.
Though a vigilance probe was initiated against Dangi for his alleged role
in a government land scandal by the Bansi Lal government, he was booked
under as many as five cases soon after Chautala came to power. After a
year-long hide-and-seek game with the police, Dangi surrendered in court
two months ago but only after getting security cover on the orders of
the Supreme Court. Dangi has since been in judicial lock up. Opposition
parties allege that by entangling his rivals in contrived criminal cases,
Chautala is trying to decimate them politically and send a message to
his own rank and file against rebellion against him. Jai Parkash, one-time
confidant of Chautala and head of the Green Brigade who had switched over
to the Congress, is now named in three firs in a land scandal. All the
cases were registered in the past year or so.
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