The UPA government may have credited Sant Singh Chatwal with working tirelessly to protect India's interests in the US to justify his selection for Padma Bhushan but the preceding dispensations in Delhi kept the controversial hotelier at arm's length, reports Times of India.
While the Atal Behari Vajpayee government quietly but determinedly worked to chalk Chatwal off the list of invitees for the lunch and banquet hosted by the prime minister in 2000 for visiting US president Bill Clinton, it now transpires that another prime minister, I K Gujral, skipped a banquet after failing to save himself from being photographed alongside the Padma awardee at a function.
Gujral, on a visit to the US in 1997, had accepted an invitation from New York's Punjab Association to confer awards on its "distinguished" members. His officials, however, balked on learning that Chatwal, who had cases pending against him both in the US and India, was among the awardees. N N Vohra, then principal secretary to Gujral and now the governor of J&K, put his foot down and the decision was bluntly conveyed to the organizers by veteran diplomat Harsh Bhasin, who was then in charge of the New York consulate.
Gujral went for the event only after organizers gave in to Vohra's insistence to take Chatwal off the list, sources recalled.
However, his officials got a rude shock on reaching the venue. They realized that the organizers, apparently working in tandem with Chatwal, had included Mrs Chatwal among those who were to get awards from Gujral. The discomfiture of the former PM was for the entire audience to see when a beaming Chatwal, recalls an eyewitness, walked up to him alongside his wife to collect the plaque.
Soon afterwards, Gujral abruptly left the venue, skipping the banquet that he had agreed to attend.
TOI's efforts to contact Gujral for his version of the event did not succeed, but senior sources attested to the veracity of the eyewitness account of the happenings that eventful evening in New York.
The home ministry has justified the decoration for Chatwal on the ground that no case exists against him, but the defence has been undermined severely by cases pending against him both in Thiruvananthapuram and Delhi. The revelations also raise questions about the credibility of the vetting of Chatwal's antecedents by agencies, as claimed by the home ministry to members of the Padma screening committee and the Rashtrapati Bhawan.
Rashtrapati Bhawan, which had sought clarifications from the home ministry on the issue, has said the ministry assured the President that due diligence was followed and the credentials of the NRI were verified by agencies. "What kind of scan are we talking of which doesn't even reveal cases pending in courts," said a senior bureaucrat.
There are few takers for the other alibi that has been cited for the honour for Chatwal -- that he was crucial for the conclusion of the Indo-US nuclear deal. It is pointed out that Hillary Clinton, whom Chatwal is close to, was opposed to the deal initially. Whether her 'no' turned into a 'yes' is not known because individual senators didn't get down to spelling out their choice.
As the controversy continues to cause embarrassment to the PMO, Chatwal has shown little inclination to open an escape route for the people for whom he says he has regard, including the prime minister. He has struck a defiant tone in remarks to the media and his presence in March, when the awards are to be actually conferred, can spell fresh PR problems for the government unless the agony over the controversy leads to a rethink over his selection.
