The Badals will have to accept moral responsibility for the death of a minor girl who was molested and then thrown off a bus along with her mother at Moga in Punjab. The bus in question was operated by Orbit Aviation Pvt Ltd which is co-owned by Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal. Among the accused in the case are the conductor and cleaner of the bus. These are personnel who should have helped the mother and daughter but are alleged to have colluded in the sexual crime. It would appear that the accused were emboldened by the fact that the bus service was owned by a man who holds the levers to power in the government. As deputy chief minister, Sukhbir, is not merely holding an ornamental position. With his father and the state’s Chief Minister, the 87-year-old Prakash Singh Badal, preferring to take the backseat, Sukhbir is increasingly perceived as the leading light of the Punjab government.

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There is a clear case of conflict of interest here which cannot be dismissed merely by Sukhbir claiming that his company has not received any undue favours from the state transport department or the government. It is after all the transport department which takes crucial decisions in running transport services — from sanctioning route permits to disbursing fitness certificates to the bus staff. We are not arguing that industrialists or entrepreneurs have no place in politics. But there is certainly a case for them to forsake and divest their shareholding and interests in private limited companies when they enter government. The revised code of conduct for central and state ministers issued in December 2013 is clear that a minister should “sever all connections, short of divesting himself of the ownership, with the conduct and management of any business in which he was interested before his appointment as Minister”. The code also advises ministers to transfer interest, ownership and management to any adult member of their family, other than a spouse. Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa has alleged that Sukhbir is the managing director of Orbit Aviation. If true, this would be a violation of the code of conduct.

While it is not legally enforceable, the code is in place because reasonable suspicion exists that the business interests of many politicians and their relatives have benefited from their tenure in public office. The case of the late Andhra politician YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s tenure, when his son Jagan Mohan Reddy built up a formidable business empire is well known. Congress leader Amarinder Singh has alleged that Orbit was showered with route permits by the Badal government at the cost of the state transport corporation and other private transporters. Such allegations, despite being politically motivated, reveal the Akali Dal government’s crisis of credibility, and the party’s difficulty in countering such accusations. There is no doubt that Moga — like in other parts of the country — is a site of rampant gender violence. Close on the heels of the death of the 13-year-old girl yet another incident was reported in Moga where the driver and conductor ignored a woman’s complaints against another passenger. Parallels have been drawn with Delhi’s December 16 2012 gang-rape which happened in a moving bus. But the rampant politicisation that we have recently witnessed over the death of the teenaged girl deflects attention from the subject of violence against women. There are other critical challenges confronting Punjab. Among the local issues dominating last year’s Lok Sabha elections in the state was the worsening law and order situation and rising drug abuse among the youth. Sukhbir has always claimed his business interests have never come into conflict with the governance of the state. In her death, 13-year-old Arshdeep Kaur has given the lie to his smug words of confidence and his unsuccessful balancing act.