Sweetened deals, soured returns

HYDERABAD: The arrest of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu by the state’s Crime Investigation Department (CID) typifies our politics today. As a nation, we are bemused witnesses to the mutual vendettas our political leaders carry out. We are told grandly that the “law will take its course” but that river never reaches the sea. This case too has all the hallmarks of ending up in a dusty cupboard of the CID.

The case against Naidu relates to a Rs 3,300 crore skill development project launched by the Andhra Pradesh government in 2015, when he was chief minister. Private companies were invited to set up training centres to upskill the state’s youth to solve the unemployment problem.

As per the terms of the contract, the state government would pay 10 per cent of the project cost up front, while 90% would come from the technology partners, but as an ‘in-kind grant’. CID says the stage government paid out its entire lot of Rs 370 crore even before the project had commenced and before the private partners had put in any contribution ‘in kind’. The monies were quickly accessed by cut-out companies.

Such sweetheart deals are par for the course for governments in India, crony capitalism being the ruling creed. In fact, in the era of public-private partnerships, they are more the norm than exception. Further, crony capitalism is party agnostic. Such deals with private parties with names deceptively adjacent to big brands were rampant in Andhra Pradesh even before it was bifurcated.

Naidu’s administration in the undivided state ran a very privatisation-friendly policy, and the succeeding regime of YS Rajasekhara Reddy, father of present chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, topped it by doling out juicy up-front ‘mobilisation advances’ to irrigation contractors, who promptly used the money to buy up prime real estate in Hyderabad.

Firms run by Jagan Mohan Reddy himself were handsome beneficiaries of investments made by companies during his father’s time in power. Cases filed against him 13 years ago to explain those riches continue to be dormant in some cupboards of the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate. It is not in the least ironic that the charges levelled against Naidu now should cite the same laws and sections as were thrown at Reddy then.

This is a spy vs spy game. Ruling parties file cases against political opponents to amass electoral leverage. The law enforcement agencies, importuned to go at the target, do a hasty investigation and file charges full of holes. The lower judiciary, too timid in the face of the ruling party, plays along, fully knowing that the higher judiciary will pick up the loopholes left in by the investigators. We might have turned a full electoral circle by now and the game goes on.

What is remarkable in these cases is the insights it offers into the real working of our governments, freed of the veneer painted by publicity departments. The skills contract that has now got the Naidu government into trouble was awarded, according to the CID, on the basis of a Power Point presentation. This is laughable due diligence, if true.

Yet, this is not unheard of by the governments of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh or its succeeding states. In one case, an impostor claiming to be a representative of Volkswagen, promised to bring the famed German carmaker to the state, and persuaded the government to deposit Rs 11 crore into his account, which he named VW. Thinking it to be Volkswagen, government deposited the money in the account, from which it was swiped in minutes. Investigators later found that VW stood for Vasishta Wahan.