As was only to be expected, the Congress leadership has reacted violently to Mr V.P. Singh’s charge that an equivalent of Rs 8 crores has been deposited in a Swiss bank account belonging to Mr Rajiv Gandhi. Mr Singh has given the number of the alleged account (99921), the name of the bank (TU Swiss Bank Corporation, Geneva), and the dates on which specific amounts have been deposited in 1986 and 1987. There is however, a catch in the charge. According to Mr Singh himself, the account stands in the name of Lotus and he has not produced evidence to show that Lotus is indeed Mr Gandhi. Mr Singh has offered to retire from public life if the Prime Minister can prove the charge wrong. But the onus of proof is on the accuser and not on the accused. The former finance minister knows this to be the case as well as anyone else. He cannot even argue that the Swiss authorities are not going to oblige him, for he claims to be already in possession of the necessary details. He is honour-bound to place that information before the Indian people so that they can scrutinize it.
This would have been so even if the Congress leadership had not dared him to produce the evidence. As it happens, it has challenged him. He cannot now refuse to pick up the gauntlet except at grave risk to his credibility at least among discerning sections of Indian society. Mr Singh has claimed that he is in possession of information regarding Mr Gandhi’s other accounts abroad which he would disclose at an appropriate occasion. This is an extraordinary approach. Mr Singh is not being fair to the nation by keeping it on tenterhooks. Indeed, it lends substance to the charge that he is trying to destabilize the government. He should place before the people whatever relevant information he possesses and, needless to add, he should simultaneously produce the supporting evidence. In any event, right now the relevant issue is whether the sums in question have in fact been deposited in the said account in the said bank and whether Mr Singh possesses clinching evidence to link Mr Gandhi with Lotus.
Mr Singh was quoted sometime ago to say that he was through with the Bofors payoff issue and would not return to it. Apparently, he has gone back on that position. This has been interpreted to suggest that he is desperate to raise the flagging morale of his supporters who are worried over the decline in their public appeal in recent months. We do not wish to assess the validity or otherwise of this assessment because Mr Singh’s compulsions are not strictly relevant to the issue under discussion. We would, however, wish to make two points. First, Mr Singh has reasons to feel concerned; efforts of opposition unity have not been going too well; and the Congress machine has been showing signs of renewed confidence in Mr Gandhi’s leadership and its own prospects. Second, after trying to hammer a socio-economic programme on which he is to appeal to the people for a mandate to rule the country, he has clearly found it necessary to return to his one-point plank of overthrowing Mr Gandhi. It is notable that Mr Singh is not leading on an assault on a “corrupt” Congress or a “corrupt” system. He has singled out Mr Gandhi for the attack. But why? To be candid, the answer evades us. Since he has agreed to head the National Front and the proposed Janata Dal and to break away from the Jan Morcha, we cannot even say that he is back to the original game of trying to seize leadership of the Congress party. Incidentally, in view of the Congress leaders’ charges against him, he cannot avoid a fuller explanation of his own assets – when he acquired the properties in question, the sums involved, the sources of these funds and so on.
Mr Singh’s talk of “electronic memory” does not by itself establish the veracity of the report that as finance minister he had ordered a probe into the alleged Swiss bank accounts of several leaders, including Mr H.N. Bahuguna. But it does lend a measure of credence to it. This credence is reinforced by the lack of response from Mr Singh to Mr Bahuguna’s two letters (dated October 28 and November 5) asking him to disclose whatever information he had then gathered; Mr Bahuguna and Mr Singh have seldom seen eye to eye. Currently Mr Bahuguna is refusing to fall in line with the Singh-Devilal plans of opposition unity. So Mr Singh’s silence on the Swiss bank account charge gives him an advantage in dealing with Mr Bahuguna. But for that reason alone, he must come clean. It will be a sad day in the political life of the country if a leader wanting to occupy the public morality platform comes to practice what can only be called the politics of blackmail.