We must confess at the very outset that we have been foxed by Giani Zail Singh’s disclosure that some individuals had indicated to him last summer that they were prepared to spend Rs. 30 crores to Rs. 40 crores to secure his reelection as President. Even a week after the publication of the explosive interview in the Sunday magazine, we are just not able to say why the Giani has said what he has. Two points can be made straightaway without reservation and qualification. First, it can safely be ruled out that the former President has made the statement casually; he is not that kind of man; he speaks with great deliberation. Second, the Giani has not spoken in the interest of facilitating the task of future historians who would be wanting to find out what in fact happened behind-the-scenes in the unusually hot summer of 1987 when the then President made the extraordinary claim that the Constitution gave him the power to dismiss the Prime Minister when the latter still enjoyed an overwhelming majority in the Lok Sabha. Again, the Giani is not the kind of man to be unduly concerned with historical veracity. Who is in India?
It can thus be assumed that the Giani has chosen his own time to say what he has said and that he has spoken with a purpose. But why this timing? Quite candidly, we do not have the slightest clue. And what is the purpose? A surface reading of the interview would suggest that, for some reason known only to him, the Giani has decided to embarrass Mr VP Singh, his associates and some others ill-disposed towards Mr Rajiv Gandhi. Indeed, among others, the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha appear to have taken such a view. Or else, Mr Balram Jakhar would not have suggested that “we should do something to find out the truth” and Mr Rajiv Gandhi would not have responded to what he called the Speaker’s “instruction” and directed the Union home minister on the spot to try to find out “how best we can go into it”. But implicit in a decision on the Giani’s part to embarrass the Prime Minister’s detractors would be a decision to arm Mr Rajiv Gandhi with an enormously powerful political weapon. Surely that must, on the available evidence, be inconceivable. A careful reading of the interview would, in our view, support this proposition. The interview as a whole is highly critical of Mr Rajiv Gandhi; the Giant has not linked the ministers who “have left” or “been sent out” with the money offer; and in fact he has suggested that they were not the only ministers in Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s government who would have voted for him if he had decided to seek re-election to presidency.
If the conclusion is, as in our opinion it must be, that the Giani is not out to embarrass Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s opponents and thereby bring comfort to the Prime Minister, it follows that the government would be well advised not to pursue the idea of inquiry. If it does, it shall have placed itself atthe Giani’s mercy. Even otherwise the matter should be allowed to rest unless the former President himself decides to disclose the details. There are several reasons for it. First, even an informal inquiry has to begin with an approach to the Giani; it is not proper for the government to make such an approach to a former head of state. Secondly, the matter did not move beyond the stage of someone telling the Giani that he would be willing and in a position to raise the amount in question. In plain terms, no money was collected because in the final analysis it was not needed for the obvious reason that the Giani had chosen not to seek re-election; thus there is nothing that can be clearly established even with the Giani’s voluntary cooperation beyond the identity of the person who made the offer to him. Thirdly, the government must be very incompetent indeed if it is not already aware of what was common currency last summer. It was then widely rumoured that a certain individual was claiming that he had secured a promise from a certain number of Congress MPs that they would defect at a signal from him to bring down the Prime Minister and that he would buy up many more. Thus the identity of the person concerned should be known to the authorities if they have been vigilant in the slightest degree.