New Delhi: From Ajit Pawar, Ashok Chavan, Naveen Jindal to Geeta Koda, ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has continued to reward leaders from opposition parties who it had once accused of corruption but have since joined ranks with the saffron party or become its allies.
Opposition parties have accused the BJP of being a “washing machine” for tainted leaders who switch over to the saffron party to avoid further action from central agencies. The Wire has also reported on a statewise list of such leaders who have switched over in recent months. Since then the CBI has filed a closure report in a corruption case involving Praful Patel of the Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar faction), and illegal mining scam accused G. Janardhan Reddy has joined the BJP.
On Saturday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in response to a question on the BJP welcoming corruption tainted leaders, said that the “party is open” and “welcoming everybody”.
“Party is open, we welcome everybody,” she said.
When asked if even those with several cases against them are welcome, Sitharaman said: “Party is welcoming everybody.”
Here we look at some of the leaders who have been rewarded by the BJP with tickets and star campaigner status in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections.
1. Ajit Pawar on BJP’s Maharashtra star campaigners list
Once labelled as “Naturally Corrupt Party” by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar who led a rebellion against his uncle Sharad Pawar in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) last July has found his name in the BJP’s star campaigner’s list for the Lok Sabha elections released on Wednesday.
Pawar has been facing cases filed by multiple agencies – both at the state and central level. These cases – pertaining to a co-operative bank and the state irrigation project – have dragged on for close to a decade.
Just a week before Pawar’s rebellion in the NCP to join hands with Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction and the BJP, Modi had accused the party of corruption in the irrigation scam while addressing booth workers in Bhopal.
Earlier this month, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police submitted a closure report against Pawar in the alleged Rs 25,000 crore scam at the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank.
2. ‘Adarsh’ Ashok Chavan also star campaigner for Maharashtra
Not just Pawar, former Maharashtra chief minister and veteran Congress leader in the state Ashok Chavan who joined the BJP in February and was later that month elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha, has also been named as a star campaigner.
Like Pawar, Chavan was also routinely accused of corruption in Modi’s attacks on opposition leaders in public rallies. For instance in March 2014, Modi called the Congress “shameless” for giving a ticket to Chavan and referred to him as an “adarsh” candidate.
“All leaders accused of corruption will be dealt with proactively,” he had said at a rally in Nanded from where Chavan was contesting.
Chavan and his family members are accused of being primary beneficiaries of a 31-storey building named Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society which was originally built for 1999 Kargil war heroes and fallen soldiers’ war widows. The ED too is investigating the matter and Chavan has been named as an accused.
3. Naveen Jindal
Former Congress MP and industrialist Naveen Jindal has been named as the BJP candidate from Haryana’s Kurukshetra just hours after he joined the party last week.
At a rally in Kurukshetra in October 2014, Modi said that “scams, loot, corruption and land scams” are common in the then Congress-ruled state.
Jindal has been under the scanner of both the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate in connection with three cases related to alleged irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks in Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh.
Modi’s 2014 campaign had focused on corruption scams during the UPA government, including the coal block allocation scam. At a rally in Jharkhand’s Jamshedpur in November 2014, Modi said that he will not allow Jharkhand’s mines to be looted.
The coal block allocation scam also found place in the Centre’s white paper on the Indian economy that was tabled in parliament last month.
After Jindal was announced as the BJP’s Kurukshetra candidate, INLD’s Abhay Singh Chautala said that Modi himself had spoken about Jindal’s alleged involvement in the coal scam.
“Narendra Modi ji himself gave a statement about Naveen Jindal who they (BJP) fielded from Kurukshetra, regarding the coal scam, that people looted the mines and he would take strict action against them,” he said.
The Jindal group is among the top ten donors of electoral bonds, according to the data published by the Election Commission of India earlier this month, having donated Rs 202 crore in the last five years.
4. Krupa Shankar Singh
Krupa Shankar Singh, former Mumbai Congress president who also served as minister in the Congress’s Maharashtra government, quit the grand old party and joined the BJP in 2021. Subsequently, he was made the party’s state vice president has been fielded from his native Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh.
Singh is being probed by central investigative agencies in a disproportionate assets case in which he and his family members are accused of amassing income to the tune of Rs 230 crore.
In 2012, the BJP in Maharashtra had led the charge against Singh, and demanded his resignation.
5. Tapas Roy
Tapas Roy, former veteran Trinamool Congress leader and five-time MLA who joined the BJP earlier this month, has been fielded from Kolkata North. Roy was raided by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with irregularities in the recruitments to municipalities jobs scam.
Following the raids, Suvendu Adhikari, BJP leader and the Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal assembly, who himself had switched over from the TMC in 2021, called Roy a “thief”.
“There will be raids in a thief’s home. They are thieves. The youth and the people of Bengal want them to go behind the bars,” he said to ANI.
6. Geeta Koda
Geeta Koda, the Congress’s lone MP from Jharkhand, joined the BJP last month and has been fielded from Jharkhand’s Singhbhum. Koda is the wife of former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda, who was imprisoned in 2017 for corruption and conspiracy in connection with a coal block allocation case.
Geeta’s move to the Congress in 2018 was denounced by the BJP, with a state BJP leader calling the move “institutionalising” corruption
“By inducting Geeta Koda into the party, Congress is ‘institutionalising’ corruption. This proves that Congress leaders, too, were hand in glove with the then Chief Minister who was involved in the scam,” Ramesh Pushkar was quoted as saying by The Sunday Guardian.
Following her switch to the BJP, Jharkhand party chief Babulal Marandi has hinted that Madhu Koda too will join the saffron party.
7. Debashish Dhar
Former West Bengal IPS officer Debashish Dhar, who recently resigned from service, has been fielded by the BJP from Birbhum.
He was raided by the state CID in 2022 in connection with a disproportionate assets case. Subsequently a disproportionate assets case was lodged by the CID against him as well as businessman Sudipta Roy Chowdhury, who is also an accused in the Rose Valley chit fund scam case.
Dhar, the former superintendent of police in Coochbehar, was suspended after the 2021 state assembly elections after four people were killed in an alleged incident of firing by central forces in the district.
