The Hindu : Judev quits, PM orders CBI probe into VCD 'authenticity'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Nov 18, 2003

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Judev quits, PM orders CBI probe into VCD 'authenticity'

By Harish Khare

New Delhi Nov. 17. The Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, today accepted the resignation of the Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Dilip Singh Judev, who finds himself embroiled in an alleged bribery affair. The Prime Minister also ordered a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the whole gamut of issues concerning the "authenticity" of the video compact disc (VCD), purportedly showing Mr. Judev accepting wads of currency from a mining "agent."

Later in the night the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, accepted Mr. Judev's resignation with immediate effect.

The VCD has generated a runaway controversy, throwing out of gear the BJP's election campaign in the four northern States going to the polls later this month.

The decision to cut the ruling party's political losses was taken at a high-level meeting at the Prime Minister's residence this morning.

It was agreed that after the VCD had been released and aired by almost all television channel in the country, the BJP could no longer be seen as finding excuses for not seeking Mr. Judev's resignation.

It was also decided that the CBI should be asked to go into, what one participant called, "a whole range of suspicious circumstances" surrounding the damning VCD.

However, it is understood that even before the senior leaders confabulated this morning, Mr. Judev had been asked to send in his letter of resignation. Though Mr. Vajpayee had cautioned last night that Mr. Judev should not be pre-judged till a probe was carried out, the enormity of the Minister's culpability was obvious by this morning. The avalanche of negative images and sound-bytes from the Judev VCD provided another reason to show him the door.

After the meeting, the party president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, announced Mr. Judev's resignation. The CBI probe was announced by the Prime Minister himself at an "Iftar" party hosted by the Union Textiles Minister, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain. Mr. Vajpayee, however, avoided saying anything on the matter; he merely observed that the "images were not very clear." Asked if the controversy would have any impact on the poll outcome, he said that "it will be known only after the votes have been counted."

Till the Prime Minister returned home late on Sunday night from his overseas trip and gave sufficient indication that Mr. Judev would have to go if found guilty, the BJP leadership found itself confused on the ethical issues arising out of the episode.

Till Mr. Vajpayee spoke, the party was stoutly defending the Minister. The delay in the resignation has denied it an opportunity to occupy the high moral ground. Curiously enough, the party continues to insist that Mr. Judev has done nothing wrong and that he has been "framed" in a "conspiracy", hatched allegedly by the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister, Ajit Jogi. Mr. Judev is one of the chief ministerial hopefuls if the BJP wins the Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh.

The Government and the ruling party are united in detecting the "hidden hand" of Mr. Jogi. The decision to have a CBI probe has been taken in the hope that it would enable the BJP to keep alive the "conspiracy" theory as well as to ask the Congress leadership to make Mr. Jogi also resign as Chief Minister since he is also an "FIRed" person. The Congress has already aggressively sought Mr. Judev's prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

By getting Mr. Judev to resign and by having a CBI probe instituted, the BJP establishment has acknowledged that the VCD has indeed queered the pitch in not just Chhattisgarh but also Madhya Pradesh.

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