CBI Infighting Goes Public

Key to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s success as an administrator is his ability to run a tight ship.

- Uday Mahurkar

He puts his trust in a small group of bureaucrats, officers and party colleagues and leans heavily on them to keep the huge machinery of the government in running order. In return, this group can expect the PM’s loyalty and support.

Rakesh Asthana, special director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), is certainly part of the prime minister’s inner circle. Asthana led a Special Investigation Team (SIT) inquiry into the 2002 fire that killed 59 people, many of them karsevaks returning from the disputed Babri Masjid site on the Sabarmati Express train, arguing that it was a “carefully planned and meticulously executed criminal conspiracy” at a time when the counter-narrative was that it was an accident.