As the BJP paints itself to a corner with its leaders getting fat on the power the party wields in New Delhi, a team of reporters dig deeper to find a larger malady. The cash-for-medical affiliation scam and the irregularities related to the prime minister’s Jan Oushadhi scheme are the latest cases in a long line of business shady politicians indulge in.
Broker-dealers have a field day in politics
The BJP’s main plank in last year’s assembly election was its offer of an alternative to the major political fronts of Kerala. Recent exposes have proved that the party is neck-deep in the dirty businesses that thrive in the underbelly of politics.
Party leaders seldom let an opportunity pass, let it be the construction of a memorial for one of its pioneers or the anniversary celebration of the Narendra Modi government.
A memorial for K.G. Marar remains a pipe dream for the party which rules at the Center. The party had raised about Rs 3 crore but nobody knows where the money went.
The BJP decided to construct a building in memory of its former state president in Kannur in 1998. The new building was supposed to be the office of the party’s district unit. An old building under the K.G. Marar Trust was razed to make way for a swanky office for the party.
A committee led by former state president P.K. Krishna Das hit the ground running. The committee members worked overtime to raise funds for the building. They even approached B.S. Yeddyurappa when he became Karnataka chief minister in 2008. Ministers, legislators and Keralite merchants in the neighboring state were forced to donate for the project.
Unofficial estimates put the figure around Rs 3 crore but the committee could not come up with a clean audit. The scam led to skirmishes within the party and an embarrassing exodus of party workers to the CPM.
To be fair, the committee was able to kick off the project but the land and the half-done building were sold later and the money was used to buy another plot for the project. The project is still progressing at a snail’s pace for want of funds.
So what had happened to the money collected so far. Some of the leaders were making a quick profit by lending it on high interests, grass-roots workers suggest.
If the party needed another reason to complete the building sooner, a woman has complained that the present district headquarters of the party runs out of her building without her consent. The woman has claimed that her house has been taken over while she was abroad. The women’s commission has found merit in her complaint and asked the BJP leaders to vacate the premises as early as possible.
Power pie
The BJP’s ascent to power at the Center in 2014 brought with it unlimited possibilities for its leaders. The Narendra Modi government's third anniversary was a harrowing experience for the merchants of Kochi.
A state-level leader from the city had the early-bird advantage. He collected hefty amounts from the merchants and establishments in the city. Receipts? Are you joking?
The unauthorized collection came to light when the district committee leaders went on their own fund-raising drive. Nobody wanted to pay twice for the same cause.
The state-level leaders had not even spared the central and state public sector enterprises. He had raised about Rs 40 lakh only from the public sector undertakings.
Of course, he did not eat that money. He organized a photo exhibition on Modi, put up photos of all the union ministers and screened a video from the field publicity department!
Another state-level leader in the party still bears the stink of the petrol pump allotment scam from the days of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. He shamelessly appropriated the pumps allotted in the names of ordinary workers who had laid down their lives for the party.
He took over the pumps and got it re-allotted to anyone who would pay him. He built a palatial house around the time. His detractors say that the house stinks of petrol.
Pays to be mediator
Mediating between rivals can be a lucrative business, any greenhorn politician will tell you. The business of politics seems to be duping businessmen.
An easy route to make quick bucks lies in realty. Crooked politicians cozy up to landowners who own valuable property involved in legal tangles. They would convince the landowners that the land could never be sold and offer to buy it for a song.
The leaders would be smart enough not to get his name involved in the deal. He would buy the land in the name of a friend or a distant relative. The influential politician would have no trouble in ironing out the procedural hiccups and selling the land for huge premium.
A group of CPM leaders in Kollam are specialists in such deals. They preside over a network of officials in the local self-government bodies and the revenue department who could legitimize any property. The land is then divided into small plots and sold.
The profit runs up to crores of rupees and everybody gets a share.
An area committee member of the CPM who had a key role in the Kollam municipal corporation was known for such shady deals. The leaders’ role in the land deals in and around the city is an open secret. One of them landed in soup after he got a one-and-a-half acre plot registered in his name as a reward for mediating in a property dispute in a family from Malabar.
Anything for money
One of the shareholders in the Cochin International Airport Limited once faced an arrest. The expatriate businessman’s only fault was to rub a Congress legislator the wrong way. The businessman and the politician from Ernakulam district were involved in a chain of large land deals in the Nedumbassery, Ayyampuzha, Kalady and Sreemoolanagaram areas.
The businessman ended up paying a bomb for the plots, most of them belonging to a coterie of actor Dileep, two actresses and a director. The land was overpriced because they were paddy fields reclaimed against the law. The MLA had hoodwinked the investors into buying about 300 acres of land.
The businessman later realized that he had paid over three or four times the actual value of the land and demanded his money back. The MLA retorted with the threat of an arrest.
Political leaders vie with each other to establish connections with NRI businessmen. A young MLA proved his connections before former chief minister Oommen Chandy.
Chandy had come to the Ernakulam district collectorate for a public interaction drive when some kids approached him on behalf of 11 children who were physically and mentally challenged. They said they wanted a bus to travel to school.
The chief minister talked with the MLAs. One of them immediately rang up a healthcare entrepreneur in the Middle East and put him on to Chandy. The investor offered Rs 12 lakh to buy a school bus for the special children. He had already paid Rs 20 lakh as insurance premium for students in the legislators’ constituency.
The investment proved to be wise when the businessman had a dispute with his partner from Malappuram. The squabble turned dirty when the partner’s son was kidnapped from his college in Kochi. A thug from Karukappilly was hired to lock up the boy for two days to pressure his father.
Two young CPM leaders, one of them an MLA, flew to the Middle East to settle the dispute between the partners. The expatriate businessman later rued his decision to go for political patronage. He confided in his friends that he had to shell out close to Rs 2 crore to sort out the problems stemming from a dispute related to Rs 16 crore.
One of the CPM leaders and the hired gun landed in police custody later in an unrelated case. The MLA proved to be a survivor even then.
Legal eagle
Send a legal notice to distraught businessmen and follow it up with an offer to negotiate. This is a proven strategy for some politicians with legal background to make it big. The “legal quotation” is prevalent in the real estate business.
Both parties to the dispute will readily agree for an out-of-court settlement given the long years they will have to spend on court cases. The settlement mafia is assured of support from some cops and goons alike.
A politician found this method so profitable that he switched careers altogether. Now he is a practicing advocate with offices in all cities in Kerala and even Bengaluru. He has no dearth of cases.
A typical case involves a businessman who wants to solve a monetary dispute. He would hire the advocate to send a legal notice to the person who owes him money. Legally, he has to follow it up in a court of law, whether the other person responds to the notice or not.
With this politician-turned-advocate, things work out differently. He sees to it that the recipient of the notice is visited by a couple of policemen. The cops threaten to arrest the man if he fails to pay up. They would even advise the scared person to approach the advocate to try for a settlement. A senior IPS officer has a key role to play in this racket.
A builder in central Kerala could testify for the existence of this racket. He received advances from several expatriates for apartments under construction. The job went on forever and the clients were impatient.
The law firm of the former politician was hired to settle the dispute. The builder was served a legal notice. A visit from the police followed. A settlement was reached. Who was the winner? The advocate, of course. He went home with an 18 percent commission as fee for the settlement. The builder and the expatriates ended up paying the advocate.
The advocate can work for anyone. There has been instances where he had been employed by the accused to arm-twist the complainants. The complainants had to pay up and get the case closed.
Nothing seems to be impossible for the firm with the necessary connections in the power circles and the police.
(To be continued)
(Reported by Jiji Paul, Anil Kurudath, Jayachandran Ilankath, R Krishna Raj, V R Prathap, Mintu P Jacob, A S Ullas and T B Lal)
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