Home truths?

Saamna, the Shiv Sena mouthpiece, was the first to carry the news (Saamna, 13 May) that the passport application of Maharashtra's Minister of State for Home, Ramesh Bagwe, was not cleared by the Pune police on account of his criminal record. The story was immediately picked up by the national media and the 24-hour news channels. Bagwe • a politician not much known outside the state • accused the Pune Police Commissioner, Satyapal Singh of engineering the press report, in retaliation for the Minister's censuring and transferring him for failing to control rising crime rates in the city. One TV channel showed footage of Singh, in civvies, waiting (and reportedly failing) to meet the Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and the Maharashtra Congress Chief Manikrao Thackeray, presumably to 'clarify' his position.

Saamna and the rest of the Marathi media kept the issue alive over the subsequent weeks with the help of the Pune police, who, in contrast to their usual practice of shutting out the media or feeding them disinformation and misinformation, enthusiastically passed on details of Bagwe's criminal records including crime case numbers and sections of the Bombay Police Act and Indian Penal Code under which he is charged.  In a special feature (‘Police Diary’, 21 May) in Saamna, columnist Prabhakar Pawar traced Bagwe’s history in politics and alleged that he had been served with a 'banishment' order by the Pune police in 1990, but had managed to get it quashed through his proximity to Congress strongman Suresh Kalmadi. The revelation that Bagwe had not disclosed his police record in his pre-election affidavit to the Election Commission fuelled further public outrage.

Bagwe's rejoinder - that the cases against him were politically motivated and that he has been tried and acquitted in some of them • was not given too much weight by most commentators.  Saamna led the demand for his sacking and, predictably, castigated the Congress leadership and Chief Minister Chavan for ignoring Bagwe's criminal past and including him in the cabinet, that too in the Home department.

The revelations about Bagwe (who had earlier attracted ridicule for picking up Rahul Gandhi's shoes during Gandhi's visit to Mumbai) have attracted disapproval and criticism from within the ruling coalition as well, leaving the Congress seriously embarassed. However, the way in which the episode has played out and the hounding of Bagwe not only by Saamna and opponents of the ruling coalition but by the Marathi media in general, suggests that it is fuelled by more than just a concern for probity in public life.

An editorial in the Maharashtra Times warns the Congress High Command against going by  appearances and emphasises the need to probe the role of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) as well as the police in the media campaign against Bagwe.  The Home Minister, RR Patil, belongs to the NCP. Bagwe's mentor Suresh Kalmadi and the NCP's Ajit Pawar are locked in a struggle to claim exclusive control of Pune politics.

Pehaps the most thoughtful and balanced analysis of the Bagwe saga comes from Mrinalini Nanivadekar, political correspondent with the Pune-based ‘Sakal group of newspapers’. In her article of 23 May, she cites the Bagwe case as evidence that the criminalisation of politics is not confined only to UP or Bihar as many people might like to believe. In the present system, money generated through crime is an essential weapon in electoral battles. She points out that Bagwe may well have succeeded in suppressing the revelations about his police record if not for his clash with the Police Commissioner. Emphasising that Bagwe should face punishment if found guilty, she poses a pertinent question: would the Pune police be as forthcoming with damaging information in the case of other politicians as well?

While Bagwe's future in politics remains a subject for speculation, the key role played by the police in bringing down Bagwe suggests a dangerous slippage in governance, says Ms. Nanivadekar. Every day, newspaper reports provide yet more evidence of the ways in which politicians and criminals collaborate with the police to further personal vendettas or settle scores with rivals. Rather than milking the political possibilities of this sordid saga, she suggests that members of the ruling coalition would do well to work together to re-establish executive control over the police force and restrict them to their primary functions of law-enforcement and crime control.

PRABHAKAR KULKARNI  is an independent journalist based in Kohlapur.