What do Subramanian Swamy, Prashant Bhushan and Vinod Rai have in common? Swamy could be called a politician turned anti-Congress evangelist, often dubbed as a man with a destructive streak and a pet peeve—targeting the top leaders of the Congress. Bhushan is a staunch human rights advocate whose strident attack on corruption has brought an unrepentant UPA-II to the point of paralysis. Rai heads a constitutional body, the Comptroller & Auditor General of India (CAG), whose stinging report on the 2G spectrum scam gave him an almost adversarial aura vis-a-vis the UPA. Such were the unlikely forces that finally coalesced on February 2, creating in their wake hope for those battling institutionalised corruption and lack of transparency in governance.
It might seem the trio was working in tandem towards the February 2 order of the Supreme Court cancelling 122 licences given to telecom companies by former Union minister A. Raja, now in prison as an undertrial. In the chaotic scenes witnessed after the order, the government was...
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