The strange case of Jayanthi Natarajan

Jayanthi Natarajan, former Union environment minister in the UPA government, dropped a bombshell recently. She wrote a long, emotional letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, which was published in The Hindu this morning. The letter is in public domain, so I will not go through the contents again.

The letter was followed up by a press conference. As expected, her revelations and subsequent events led to a huge controversy, with allegations and counter allegations flying thick and fast.

At the moment, the limelight is on Natarajan and everyone is hankering after her sound bites. However, if we step back from the hysteria, we will see that she is actually not the real story. The main focus should be on the key issues that she has revealed in her story.

First, Natarajan has essentially said that the Congress party was run on the whims of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, who also seemed to run the country by proxy. While this news does not surprise anyone, it is noteworthy since this is the first time a senior, longstanding member of the party has stated it publicly.

Second, as a minister, she had sworn loyalty to the Constitution of India. Yet, it appears that in practice, she was forced to take important decisions based on external pressure. There was interference from people who were not members of the government. This included Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who held no official post, and even more distressingly, various Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

Third, her press conference revealed that some NGOs had penetrated the highest levels of decision making in her ministry. This admission raises disturbing questions. Who were these NGOs? Who was funding them? What was their agenda in interfering in the government's work? We need answers on an urgent basis.

At this point, it is interesting to note that the NGO problem is deeper than it appears at first sight. Their interference was not limited to Natarajan's environment ministry alone. It seemed to be a systemic problem. If you recall, the National Advisory Council (NAC), which Sonia Gandhi relied on for key decisions, comprised a motley crew of NGO people. These unelected individuals wielded enormous influence on governance with no accountability - an act that went against the very core of our democracy.

You may also recall that the UPA government added a two per cent CSR levy on company profits. This was effectively a tax levied by entrenched NGOs on companies to run their own agenda. This is akin to corporates levying a tax on us where they themselves are the beneficiaries. Think how would we react then. The NGO lobby has pretty much managed to do the same thing without a whimper of protest from us.Fourth, Natarajan has stated that she was forced to attack PM Modi on a cooked-up "Snoopgate" case. She was clearly uncomfortable with such a baseless and personal smear attempt. Yet, her party went ahead to malign Modi and an unknown woman for political gains.

Natarajan's allegations have put the Congress party on the back foot, and they are scrambling to respond coherently. The most amusing response so far has been the party's claim that Natarajan was corrupt, and was being blackmailed by the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) into making baseless allegations. This view is laughable since the corruption, if it happened, was during her tenure as a Congress minister. What was the government doing while she was looting the people? What action did they take to penalise her later?

In their panic, the Congress seems to have got themselves into a Catch-22 situation. If it turns out that Natarajan was indeed corrupt, the shame of connivance is theirs. If her allegations are true, the shame of her revelations is also theirs.