Bhupesh Bhandari: Blame it on politics

he next general elections will be the dirtiest ever in India. Many businessmen will face the heat

Tarun Tejpal's first reaction, after his alleged sexual assault on a employee in Goa last month became a national issue, was to call it a political conspiracy hatched by the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, to defame him. "Wrath of vengeance," he said was what BJP had unleashed on him. Mr Tejpal didn't spell it out, but we all know why the BJP should hate him. It was Tehelka, then a website run by Mr Tejpal, which filmed Bangaru Laxman, the party's president, taking money for promising to swing a defence contract in 2001. It brought Mr Laxman's political career to an abrupt end and was a huge loss of face for the BJP. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance launched an investigation into Tehelka's ownership, which was more in the nature of a witch-hunt. The party finally got the opportunity to nail Mr Tejpal last week after a long wait of 12 years (nine years after it was voted out of power), if the conspiracy theorists are to be believed. So, does that make the whole controversy political vendetta?

The evidence is mixed. There is nothing to show - so far - that BJP had any role in uncovering the incident or prodded the victim to voice her allegations. But it is true that the Goa government, led by Manohar Parrikar of the BJP, has shown remarkable swiftness in pursuing the case. Mr Parrikar insisted in a press conference that he was "not taking any additional interest in the case", but that didn't sound very convincing.

Mr Parrikar said he would not stop Thinkfest, the event organised by Mr Tejpal where the molestation is alleged to have happened, but asked who would want to be associated "with a person who has such a serious charge against him?" It is clear that the event has no future in Goa so long as the BJP is in power in the state.

The episode has also given some respite to the BJP and its prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, from "Snoopgate" - the alleged surveillance of a woman under the express orders of Amit Shah, Mr Modi's Man Friday. Mr Shah, in an expose done by websites Cobrapost and Gulail, was found feeding all information to "Saheb" in real time. The Tehelka controversy gave BJP the opportunity to strike back. In the days that followed the Tehelka revelation, Subramanian Swamy unearthed a June 2004 letter written by the prime minister's office to Sonia Gandhi, the United Progressive Alliance chairperson, which he said indicated that Mr Tejpal was close to the Congress' first family. "I am asking the concerned ministries to examine the cases and review their status and proposed course of action," the letter said.

Meenakshi Lekhi, the BJP spokesperson, said no less than five ministers were trying to shield Mr Tejpal, though she did not take names. Sushma Swaraj tweeted that a senior minister held shares in Tehelka. Kapil Sibal, the minister of telecommunications and information technology, said he had donated Rs 5 lakh to Tehelka in 2003 when he was a lawyer - he had never applied for shares in return. To top it all off, Vijay Jolly, a Delhi BJP heavyweight, vandalised the nameplate at the house of Shoma Chaudhary, the Tehelka managing editor who quit after the controversy, and brought universal ridicule upon himself.

Around the same time, all the financial deals Mr Tejpal cut in the past started to tumble out with great rapidity. Allegations of "killing" investigative reports also surfaced, done allegedly to curry favour with the Goa government (then under Congress rule). No leaders of either the Congress or the United Progressive Alliance have so far come out in open support of Mr Tejpal, though Digvijay Singh said the National Democratic Alliance had "strangulated" Tehelka and remembered Mr Tejpal for his fight against the communal forces.

The political spin that Mr Tejpal gave the case can be seen as an attempt to shift the focus from his alleged misdemeanour at Goa. The victim, too, has pleaded that there is no need to politicise the whole affair. But then, this is the oldest trick in the trade. It can obfuscate many wrongdoings in the eyes of the people. Public opinion is all about perception; and perceptions can be shaped - that's what public-relations specialists get paid for. Remember Mr Tejpal at the Delhi airport on his way to Goa? He was surrounded by his wife, a daughter and a niece. The message was subtle: the family believes in him. So, has his attempt to give the whole episode a political colour succeeded? Yes. Has the politicisation of the episode dwarfed the original allegation? The answer is no.

A few days ago, news reports from Kolkata quoted Subrata Roy of the Sahara group as saying that his problems with two regulators, the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities & Exchange Board of India, emanated from his remark in 2004 that only someone India-born (which Sonia Gandhi is not) should be the country's prime minister. Soon, the Sahara group gave its version of things. According to it, Mr Roy appreciated that Sonia Gandhi had "maintained her dignity as a daughter-in-law of the country very well" and said she is not to be blamed for Sahara's problems.

I wonder how Naveen Jindal, who also happens to be a Congress Member of Parliament, would have reacted if the investigation into coal allotment to his group was launched by the National Democratic Alliance and not the United Progressive Alliance; would he have resisted the temptation to call it a political conspiracy? That is conjecture. One thing you can be sure of is that a lot of muck will be thrown in the months to come. The next general elections will be the dirtiest ever in India. No punches will be held back. No trick in the bag will remain unused. Many businessmen, and other respectable gents, will face its heat. Several of them are likely to say that they were innocent bystanders who got caught in the political crossfire.