How AgustaWestland scam will play out for BJP and Congress

Scams in defence deals are nothing new to India. The details about AgustaWestland chopper deal, now tumbling out of legal cupboards like stashed skeletons, provide good headlines but the copy is equally important: Nothing moves in India and its government without bribing those in government. Bribes are given to secure approvals and contracts and cut deals at the highest as well at the lowest levels.

Bribes are necessary for everything - from all pins to elephants - as the character portrayed by Utpal Dutt in Satyajit Ray's searing social indictment, Jana Aranya or The Middleman, explained to the protagonist (see it if you have not - it's on YouTube).

The only difference is the scale - last month I paid a "facilitation fee" of Rs 1,200 to get my driving license reissued while Finmeccanica, AgustaWestland's parent company in Italy, paid huge bribes to secure the now-cancelled Rs 36 billion deal.

The extra money which I paid is in the category of "routine transactions" that take place in most parts of India and the monies that changed hands for the chopper deal regularly add excitement to India's political jatra. As if it had dull moments ever!

Ever since an Italian appeal court judgment made a mention of Sonia Gandhi as the "driving force", the decibel level of the Indian political theatre has increased manifold.

Going by past experience, this level will further rise as the AgustaWestland scam has taken a new turn with the Italian appeals court overturning the lower court's verdict and convicting former Finmeccanica chief executive Giuseppe Orsi for corruption. Along with another colleague, he has been held guilty of several wrong practices, including bribing to secure the deal.

This has provided the Indian government and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders to emphatically state that now that the "bribe-giver" has been convicted, "it is the turn of the bribe-taker." The manner in which the BJP leaders and spokesperson have raised the pitch, it is clear that they have arrived at the judgment regarding the identity of the bribe takers.

It is a different matter that for any prosecution to begin, due investigation shall have to be concluded and only then can the matter be examined by courts. But like in all defence scams, much before the judicial verdicts, kangaroo courts complete their jobs every day on the small screens. So why should not they do the same in the AgustaWestland scam?

Madhu Limaye, the socialist bull in the Janata shop, had retreated to his Pandara Road flat he was allotted by virtue of being a freedom fighter and rarely ventured out when the Bofors controversy ricocheted through Lutyens' Delhi.

He received several people every evening, a few out of reverence and others for their share of wisdom. I was in the second lot and on one occasion he came up with a gem: "Post-Bofors, India has returned to the post-Aurungzeb era of the Mughal Empire - anyone who dreamt of becoming badshah will become one."

This turned out to be truly prophetical - VP Singh, PV Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, HD Deve Gowda, Inder Gujaral, Manmohan Singh and... I think we will put the full stop after the name of the man who has been India's prime minister for the longest continuing period after Jawaharlal Nehru. Narendra Modi's accession, whether you like him or not, has kickstarted another phase of Indian politics and history.

What has post-AgustaWestland heralded? If the charges against Sonia Gandhi stick, anyone who has dreamt - or even remotely wished to be Congress president - shall become one at some point or another. There may even be several Congress presidents, each one with a different suffix - Congress (A), Congress (B), Congress (C), Congress (D) etc.

But what if the charge does not stick? Sonia Gandhi will not vacate the party presidency and there will be little likelihood of Rahul Gandhi becoming Congress president. So either way, the scion shall remain Crown Prince. Given his lack of enthusiasm, not that he will mind that much.

On the face of it, the AgustaWestland scam is the perfect medicine which a beleaguered BJP required. Despite all his development talk, Modi's biggest promise in 2014 was "Na khaoonga, na khaane doonga."

So after having spent two years campaigning that "not a single scam" has surfaced during the tenure of this government (history, by the way, shows scams surface at least after two years of being in power), Modi and his teammates have the opportunity to first pillory and punish the person who has partaken in the proverbial "eating".

For how long will Modi and his team denounce Sonia Gandhi and her associates for being the "driving force" of the scam? Will the scam and the required investigation be now directed to secure a prosecution or will it be used as just another weapon in Modi's campaign to usher in a Congress-mukt Bharat?

Will the prime minister and his lead counsellor, the legal edge of the BJP's trimurti, indulge in hyperbole and rabble-rousing or will they rationally examine the evidence and move towards securing what has never been achieved in India - prosecution of someone at the highest level for a defence scam.

Like in all scams, especially in this one, as the principal middleman, James Christian Michel, a British national now living in Dubai, has neither claimed to have known anyone from the "family", nor has he been known to have lived in India; the chances of knowing what really transpired is remote.

Michel's is a total contrasting image to the most famous middleman in India - Quattrocchi - who had people swooning when he walked in Delhi's Gymkhana Club before recovering and queuing up to meet him. Michel's obscurity in India will make things doubly difficult.

Modi and his associates are all too aware of how difficult it was to ferret out information, unearth evidence and nail accused in the Bofors case. The CBI has been investigating this scam for some time and has already sent letters rogatory to several countries.

Given the remote chances of being able to secure evidence to nab the guilty and even if proof surfaces, chances of anyone actually going to jail is an improbability. Consequently, it may well be decided by the regime that it is wiser to extract political capital and keep the pot boiling.

The BJP will also step up pressure on non-Congress opposition parties by accusing them of siding and forging alliances with the scam-tainted. All this will without a doubt, further compromise governance.

But was anyone ever serious about it? Elections after all, are won with slogans and not because of work done. So it is believed!