The crusader of personal causes

The former Prime Minister’s recent agitation is a response for grinding axe against many old foes

Mandal Messiah, Tax-investigator, Bofors-inquisitor, Dacoit-vanquisher... Former Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh, may have donned many a role during his 37-years political career, but never that of a fighter for farmers’ rights. That was only till last month when V. P. Singh led a farmers’ rally in Ghaziabad (UP), demanding adequate compensation for their land acquired for building a thermal power station by who-else but his pet hate, Anil Ambani. It was his raid-regime against Dhirubhai Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited in 1987 that had cost him his job as the Union Finance Minister. The then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had shift ed him to Defence Ministry. But his inquisitions into allegations of commission being paid in the Bofors gun deal got him sacked from the Cabinet too. He resigned from the Congress and the Parliament, accusing Rajiv Gandhi of shielding commission agents in the Bofors deal. He won the Lok Sabha by-election from Allahabad as an independent. This gave India its new Mr. Clean, who was ready to end corruption in high places. He made Bofors a synonym of corruption in all spheres of life. Singh’s Jan Morcha became a rallying point for not only common man, but also all non-Congress parties including BJP and the Left parties. He became Prime Minister in 1989, promising to bring Bofors agents to book. But, instead, he ended up doing a balancing act between the Left and the BJP. To counter BJP’s Ram temple card, he implemented the Mandal Commission report providing 27% quota to ‘other backward castes’ in all educational institutions. That ignited youth passions and a number of students even immolated themselves in protest.

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Source: IIPM Publication, Editor: Arindam Chaudhuri