Karnataka’s energy minister DK Shivakumar personifies all that is wrong with the Congress. After conducting raids at over 60 places linked to the minister in Karnataka, Chennai, Bengaluru and New Delhi, the Income Tax Department has unearthed Rs 10 crore in cash alone. The department claims that he has been put under the scanner for channelling huge tranches of funds into real estate and jewellery, post demonetisation. The Income Tax department’s innocent explanation, obviously, is not the complete truth, and cannot be taken at face value. It is evident that this is BJP’s strong arm tactic to put additional pressure on the Gujarat Congress, which has delegated 42 MLAs to his care.

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However, before one hastily hurls allegations of witch-hunt at the BJP, one needs to remember that Congress’ records in hounding out politicians, bureaucrats and other functionaries antithetical to its cause, in the past, has been far too excessive, even bordering on blatant manipulation. Surely, none in the Congress can claim to have a clean slate in such affairs, can they? For the Congress to turn around and make claims of victimhood amounts to little more than the grumblings of a player who finds that the odds are not in his favour. Take a sharp look at the minister’s political history.

Essentially a cash cow of the party in Karnataka, he is also the go-to crisis manager. This is not the first time that he has done a rescue act for the Congress. In the past, he has chipped in by sheltering Congress MLAs from Karnataka and Maharashtra, and has protected MLAs in constituencies that have traditionally been rival strongholds. For Shivakumar, run-ins with the law is a quotidian affair. Forgery, forgery with an intention of cheating, cheating, cheating by personation, criminal conspiracy, furnishing false information and unlawfully buying or bidding for property are charges levelled against him, not to mention, the new charges that the I-T department will possibly frame.

This begs the question on why is the Congress party so comfortable in housing a minister like him in the state cabinet? Irrespective of what the I-T department finds the Congress can be rest assured that the findings against Shivakumar will be held as an indictment of the Congress, which has blithely looked the other way permitting him to build an empire for himself. In 2014, the people of India handed a mandate to PM Modi weary as they were of politicians like Shivakumar and Congress’ tolerance of them. The government is simply doing its job.