New
Delhi:Subramanian Swamy, the anti-corruption crusader in Prime Minister
Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, has vowed to send opposition
leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi to jail, denting already faint hopes of
political compromise on the key Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill.
Anti-corruption crusader Subramanian Swamy
Fresh
developments in a three-year-old fraud case brought by Swamy have
overshadowed attempts to bridge the political divide in search of an
elusive deal that would create a tax union in Asia's third-largest
economy.
For
Swamy, taking down a dynasty synonymous with the founding of modern
India is a bigger immediate priority than passing the GST that has in
any case been years in the making.
He says he has the tacit support of Modi, and powerful Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has also voiced his approval.
Swamy,
who has said the mother and son deserve to go to jail, told Reuters in
an interview that the GST would not help the economy. Fighting
corruption, which he says has drained $1.5 trillion out of India, would.
"The
cause I am fighting for is far greater because that's where the cancer
is," said the 76-year-old Harvard-trained economist and ex-cabinet
minister, whose strident Hindu identity politics has attracted a
fanatical following.
Swamy
met Modi on Thursday and said the prime minister voiced no objections
to his case against the Gandhis. Senior aides to Modi say that he
sympathised with the case.
"Modi-ji
has always wanted to pursue legal cases against the Gandhi family,"
said one. "This case could end the Gandhi supremacy, and that is good
for us."
Modi
has tried to undermine the Gandhis since trouncing Congress at the
ballot box last year. At the same time, he has pushed for economic
reforms, including the GST, which the government says could add up to 2
percentage points to the size of the economy.
In
his case, Swamy accuses the Gandhis of fraud, cheating,
misappropriation and criminal breach of trust in acquiring the assets of
a company that had published the National Herald, a newspaper founded
by Rahul's great grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru.
He
alleges that, through a series of debt and equity deals, a shell
company that Sonia and Rahul controlled acquired property worth about
$300 million after paying just $75,000.
The Gandhis deny wrongdoing and allies say the deals caused no financial harm to the Congress party.
SWAMY VS GANDHIS
Irked
by Swamy, Congress lawmakers have accused Modi's government of waging a
"political vendetta" against the Gandhis. The Rajya Sabha, where Modi
needs Congress support to pass the GST, has been disrupted all of this
week.
While
there are still a few days for GST to be passed and it has been listed
for debate next week, the angry mood in Congress and daily protests mean
chances of that happening are fading.
Congress
national spokesman Sanjay Jha said the political wrangling had
"neutralised" Modi's meeting with Sonia Gandhi on Nov. 27, their first
since he became prime minister in May 2014, to seek a way forward on the
GST.
Swamy,
who merged his small political party with Modi's in 2013, is best known
for successfully running a legal campaign against the last Congress
government over a multi-billion-dollar spectrum-allocation scam.
In
a blog post late on Thursday about the case, Jaitley backed Swamy and
criticised Congress for disrupting parliamentary business because of it.
"By disrupting democracy, the financial web created by the Congress leaders cannot be undone," he wrote.
A
judge had first summoned the Gandhis last year. They appealed to the
Delhi High Court, which this week quashed their plea seeking exemption
from a personal appearance. The judge hearing the case has opined that
it "smacked of criminality".
They
have been summoned to appear on Dec. 19, at which they would either
face detention or have to post bail, unless the Supreme Court
intervenes. Parliament's winter session ends four days later.
Congress
says the timing of the court's action has been influenced by politics,
but Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) denies this.
"If
they don't turn up, issue a warrant and send them to jail," Swamy said
in the book-lined study of his South Delhi residence, where case papers
were scattered across his desk.
"(It) is a total open and shut case. They are suffering from hubris."
