BJP targets Nehru, rakes up ‘jeep scandal of 1948''

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 28

Claiming that only the BJP-led NDA governments offered a corruption-free regime, the saffron party on Sunday expanded the charge of corruption right to the doorstep of the first Congress government in Independent India — the one led by Jawaharlal Nehru. 

Interacting with mediapersons as a part of celebrations of three years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government, BJP leader GVL Narsimha Rao said only two Prime Ministers gave corruption-fee and scam-free governance in modern India — first was Atal Bihari Vajpayee and now Narendra Modi, both saffron leaders.

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While the BJP has, as a matter of routine, levelled corruption charges against majority of Congress Prime Ministers, including Manmohan Singh, Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi, it is for the first time perhaps it has tried to remind the nation of the “Jeep scandal of 1948” in the regime of Nehru.

“Who can forget the Jeep scandal in 1948 when Jawaharlal Nehru was Prime Minister,” Rao said as he went on to enlist other Congress Prime Ministers under whose regimes "corruption cases came into light". “The rest is history,” he said.

As per archives, the Jeep scandal of 1948 was the first major corruption case in Independent India. “VK Krishna Menon, the then Indian high commissioner to Britain, ignored protocols and signed a Rs 80-lakh contract for the purchase of Army jeeps with a foreign firm. While most of the money was paid upfront only 155 jeeps arrived which the then Prime Minister Nehru made the government accept,” say the archives.

Rao said curbing corruption with citizen collaboration were among the topmost priorities of Prime Minister Modi. “No one can deny that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has completely eradicated cronyism and corruption from the country,” he said.