Jayanthi Natarajan has hit the Congress where it hurts most. Her letter to Sonia Gandhi dated 5 November 2014, leaked yesterday (29 January), paints dynastic scion Rahul Gandhi as a mercurial character with questionable leadership credentials who goes to the extent of “planting stories” against his own party colleagues to serve his own purpose.
Hers are not simple accusations, coming from yet another disgruntled or disillusioned Congress leader. Jayanthi, unlike some of her fellow Congressmen and women, has not just raised issues about Rahul's ability to lead, but makes some substantive points which the Congress will find very difficult to deflect.
Though her accusations can potentially dampen the Congress’s prospects in the forthcoming Delhi elections, it won’t help the BJP much. The Delhi polls have become a two-horse race between BJP and AAP. A further diminution of the Congress vote would actually help AAP, since the defection of Congress voters has so far tended to help AAP rather than BJP. In fact, the BJP’s interests would have been served better had the Congress upped its prospects, denying votes to AAP.
Former Union minister Jayanthi Natarajan. PTI
In her letter, Jayanthi has given specific instances about the Vedanta, Nirma, Adani, GVK and Lavasa projects where his office had apparently asked her (which was taken as a directive) to stall industrial projects worth thousands of crores by withholding environmental clearances. She has not indicated which projects he wanted fast-tracked, but she did talk about a change in his position with regard to environmental clearances at a Ficci meeting in December 2013, a day after she was asked to resign.
The accusations hint at the possibility that some of the key decisions of the UPA government were not decided on merit, but on Rahul Gandhi’s preferences.
Natarajan also said that on several occasions Sonia Gandhi, as UPA and National Advisory Council (NAC) chairperson, had written to her about environmental clearances. Her letter to Sonia had this to say: "As Chairperson, NAC, you have written several letters to me regarding projects in the Environment Ministry, and protection of tribal rights, and I have always kept you briefed that due care was being taken by me to protect the environment. I received specific requests (which used to be directives for us) from Shri Rahul Gandhi and his office forwarding environmental concerns in some important areas and I took care to honour those 'requests'. Shri Rahul Gandhi went in person to Niyamgiri Hills in Odisha, and publicly declared to the Dongria Kondh tribals that he would be their 'sipahi' and would not allow their interests to suffer at the hands of mining giant Vedanta. His views in the matter were conveyed to me by his office, and I took great care to ensure that the interests of the tribals were protected and rejected environmental clearance to Vedanta despite tremendous pressure from my colleagues in cabinet, and huge criticism from industry for what was described as 'stalling’ a Rs. 30,000 crore investment from Vedanta".
“The same happened in the case of the Adani projects, where I faced tremendous criticism from within the cabinet and outside, for stalling investment at a time when the country was going through a difficult time in terms of the economy. The complaints of the local fisherfolk and NGOs about environmental violations in the Adani case were forwarded to me by Shri Rahul Gandhi’s office, and I was told to liaise with Shri Dipak Babaria in the matter. Occasionally, I apprised Shri Rahul Gandhi of the steps I had taken, and he responded positively. In fact you have yourself conveyed your concern in this regard in letters written to me. In several cases, including the stalled GVK power project regarding the Dhari Devi temple in Himachal Pradesh, the Lavasa project in Maharashtra, the Nirma cement plant in Gujarat and in several other cases I was given specific input to make my decision. Apart from this Shri Pulok Chatterji, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, was in constant touch with me, and officers of the ministry in guiding the decisions to be taken by the Ministry at that time”, she added.
By listing out specific instances of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi’s interference in official ministerial work she has in a way substantiated what Sanjay Baru, media advisor to Manmohan Singh, had written in an earlier book.
It’s only natural that her letter-bomb made Finance Minister Arun Jaitley jump up and blame Rahul Gandhi of “crony capitalism”, and BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said “it is now clear that Rahul Gandhi was supervisor of the UPA factory that manufactured policy paralysis”. Both Jaitley and Environment Minister Prakash Javdekar have promised a thorough investigation into projects cleared or not cleared by Natarajan.
The Congress’s problem is three-fold when it comes to responding to the specifics of Jayanthi’s charges or to her simple query to Sonia: why was she removed from the ministry and why she was never given an explanation on why she was “sacked”. At the time of her exit from the ministry, she was told that she would be inducted for party work. That never happened. If the party now says she was sacked because of corruption then it has to list out the specifics of the case and then explain what penal action the government initiated against her and other persons. This is difficult when Manmohan Singh wrote a letter to her lauding her “excellent work” as minister and terming her contributions as “valuable”.
Second, if the party accuses her of inefficiency or causing policy paralysis, it will have to respond to her pointed accusations on Rahul and Sonia Gandhi’s directives to stall certain big projects.
Third, if the party actually does that, it runs the risk of getting itself trapped in the so-called “Jayanthi tax” controversy yet again. The BJP is now saying that the Jayanthi tax now appears to have been a “24, Akbar Road (Congress headquarters) tax”.
The story of how the Adani files suddenly went missing and were later to be found in the washroom, as detailed in her letter, is one of the juicier items to emerge from the leakage of the letter. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress have been consistently naming Adani, allegedly believed to be close to Narendra Modi, in order to target the latter.
The other difficulty for the Congress is that Jayanthi’s accusations undermine Rahul Gandhi’s claims to the leadership position. Reason: this accusation comes not from Rahul’s detractors, but from a family loyalist who saw no shame in being one.
Also, she put on record that the decision to attack Narendra Modi in “Snoopgate” was taken at the “highest level” in the party and she was drafted to taken on Modi on the issue despite her reluctance to do so. This shows that the whole controversy was raked up for political purposes.
The timing of her decision to go public with her list of grievances against Rahul Gandhi and resign from the Congress will be questioned, coming as it does on the eve of the Delhi assembly elections.
Recommended article: Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.
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