Robert Vadra plays the victim card even before Justice Dhingra submits report

Is India’s most famous son-in-law feeling a little hot under the collar? There is an earthy Bengali idiom that accurately describes Robert Vadra’s interesting reaction on Thursday, a few hours before the Justice Dhingra Commission probing controversial Haryana land deals involving him, submits its report to the BJP government.[caption id=“attachment_2811052” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Robert Vadra, PTI[/caption] The idiom goes: “Ranna ghore ke? Ami kola khaini!” It’s a dialogue between two individuals where one asks “Who’s in the kitchen?”, the other hastily replies: “But I didn’t eat the bananas!” It is not known whether Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law is fond of bananas but the fruit has featured quite prominently in his past discourse. Back in 2012, for instance, when UPA was in power, India Against Corruption (IAC) activists Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan had in a press conference alleged that Vadra had indulged in large-scale real estate corruption. In response, after a couple days Vadra wrote on his Facebook page: “Mango people in banana republic”, a seemingly contemptuous allusion to anti-corruption activism in the country. It duly triggered a political storm. Some were intemperate enough to ask whether Vadra’s comment on India being a “banana republic” was an indictment of his mother-in-law’s party since Congress has been the dominant political force in India since Independence. It has been four years since that Facebook post. In between there is a new government at the Centre and also a change in power in Haryana, where Congress’s Bhupinder Singh Hooda—who is also under the scanner for alleged irregularities in allotting land—has been replaced by BJP’s ML Khattar. In May last year, the Khattar government set up the one-man inquiry commission under Justice Dhingra, a retired judge of Delhi High Court, to probe issues concerning the grant of license(s) for developing commercial colonies by the Department of Town and Country Planning to some entities in Sector 83, Gurgaon. The Commission was to probe transfer or disposal of land, allegations of private enrichment, ineligibility of beneficiaries under the rules, and other connected matters, bringing Vadra land deal under the scanner. Journalist Shalini Singh, who broke Vadra land deals story in 2012, narrated in a Firstpost report in January this year the difficulty she had faced at different levels while bringing the politically explosive report into light despite having documentary evidence to show that Vadra’s property empire was built on soft loans handed out in unusual circumstances. The report, which was originally carried in The Hindu on 8 October, 2012 , raised questions on how Vadra’s Skylight Hospitality Ltd and another five companies, “with zero business activity or employees and meagre promoter funds of just Rs 50 lakh in 2007-08, succeeded in acquiring, by 2010, as many as 29 high-value properties, with the help of interest-free loans and advances from DLF and other builders and why these firms needed to invest in Vadra in the first place”. The report quotes documents furnished by IAC and some additional papers researched by the writer to show that “Vadra has acquired land assets in and around the National Capital Region worth hundreds of crores of rupees, sometimes at prices below market value — funded by interest-free loans disbursed to him by (realty major) DLF and other companies for no apparent reason.” In effect, said the report, from just Rs 7.95 crore in fiscal 2008, Vadra’s fixed assets and investments grew to Rs 17.18 crore in fiscal 2009, a staggering 350 percent jump in a single year to Rs 60.53 crore in fiscal 2010. According to Singh who broke the story: “The contents which detailed several other financial gaps as well, remain unchallenged by Vadra till date.” The Justice SN Dhingra Commission, set up to look into land deals in Gurgaon—including one between DLF and Vadra’s Skylight Hospitality—said on Wednesday that it had completed its investigation. Since 8 June, 2015, it has reportedly examined about 250 files related to the grant of commercial licences and also examined 26 government officials. When asked if the commission had indicted someone in the inquiry, Justice Dhingra said on Wednesday , “You have to wait for this (answer).” In fact, Vadra was not summoned by the Commission even once for inquiry. Under the circumstance, it is curious why Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law jumped the gun and in another Facebook post on Thursday, attempted to play the victim card and take the moral high ground. Vadra wrote he will “always be used for political gains” and that the government can’t prove anything against him. “They cannot prove anything without proof n there is nothing there to prove… Almost a decade of government’s false and baseless accusations on me!”

The question is, if Vadra is confident that he has broken no rules and done no wrong, what was the need for an explanation where none was sought? If his reaction speaks of confusion, Congress’s is no better. When Vadra and DLF’s deals came under intense public scrutiny, the party tried to distance itself from him, claiming that Priyanka Gandhi’s husband is a “private citizen”. If that is true, what prompted Congress leader Sanjay Jha to back Vadra by suggesting, even before the probe report was submitted, that this was political vendetta? “We have been saying that there has been a vendetta politics going on by BJP for their own benefit”. By jumping the gun, both the Congress party and its favourite son-in-law have betrayed a strange nervousness. If nobody was in the wrong, why get nervous?