On February 8, 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a swipe at his predecessor Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha, saying Singh knew the “art of bathing with a raincoat on”. It was classic Modi rhetoric: brief, biting, and politically calibrated. In a single line, he distilled a perception that had come to define the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) years—corruption scandals were widespread, yet the Prime Minister himself appeared personally untainted and politically disengaged.

The remark was more than a clever metaphor. It captured a narrative the BJP had been constructing for years, one that would play a decisive role in shaping the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

Between 2010 and 2013, three major controversies dominated headlines: the 2G spectrum allocation, the Commonwealth Games, and coal block allotments. Reports by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) estimated notional losses from these scams at lakhs of crores.

In politics, numbers rarely function as precise facts; they operate as instruments of perception. The CAG figures, contested though they were, offered the opposition something potent: scale, shock value, and a simplified storyline. What may have been seen as discrete issues began to coalesce into a broader impression of systemic corruption.

Years later, in Shades of Truth: A Journey Derailed, former Union Minister and Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal argued that much of this outrage over the 2G spectrum allocation and coal block allotments rested on “presumptive loss”—projections rather than actual losses. In electoral politics, however, such distinctions carry limited weight. What endured was the idea of “massive corruption”.

But the BJP wove these controversies into a larger political narrative. Modi promised to bring back black money stashed abroad, a pledge that appears to have receded from the government’s priorities. The debate was no longer about individual cases, but about the character of governance under the UPA. Terms such as “policy paralysis” reinforced the image of a government seen as both ineffective and compromised.

From allegation to mobilisation

Though officially non-political, anti-corruption protests—most notably those led by Anna Hazare under the India Against Corruption banner—created a climate in which political messaging could tap into deep public resentment. Round-the-clock television coverage and the rise of social media amplified this sentiment, compressing complex policy debates into stark binaries: honest versus corrupt, reform versus loot.

The BJP’s strategy was to channel this anger without being subsumed by it. Its leaders consistently raised these issues in Parliament and public forums, ensuring the allegations remained alive, emotionally resonant, and politically useful.

By the time the 2014 election arrived, the perception had hardened: the UPA years were widely equated with corruption. To be sure, the outcome was shaped by multiple factors—economic slowdown, leadership fatigue, and organisational weaknesses within the Congress. Yet the corruption narrative provided the campaign with its moral edge.

Modi positioned himself as an outsider capable of restoring probity to governance, contrasting his decisiveness with what he framed as the UPA’s inertia and compromise-driven politics. The result—a clear single-party majority after three decades—underscored the effectiveness of that framing.

What happened in court

On March 27, 2026, a Delhi special court, in a CBI-investigated case related to the Bander coal block allocation in Maharashtra, described the evidence as “highly insufficient” and based on “conjectures and surmises”. The court acquitted former Coal Secretary Harish Chandra Gupta, former Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Darda, businessman Manoj Kumar Jayaswal, Devendra Darda, and AMR Iron & Steel Pvt. Ltd, finding no evidence of criminality, undue influence, or dishonest intent in the allocation process.

Earlier, in 2025, another Delhi court had acquitted Gupta—a 1971-batch Uttar Pradesh cadre officer—along with other officials in the Mahuagarhi coal block case in Jharkhand. Several bureaucrats who worked with Gupta have informally attested to his austere lifestyle and personal integrity, though such accounts remain anecdotal.

In the 2G case, a special court had already acquitted all the accused in 2017, citing a lack of evidence, while most Commonwealth Games-related cases either collapsed or produced limited outcomes.

A pattern thus emerges across what were once projected as three major scams: allegations that appeared politically conclusive struggled to withstand judicial scrutiny. The gap is significant. Courts require demonstrable proof—clear intent, identifiable gain, and a direct nexus between decisions and benefit. In several instances, judges found these elements missing.

The Supreme Court did flag serious irregularities in the allocation of 2G spectrum and coal blocks, even cancelling licences. But those findings pertained to flawed policy and procedure, not necessarily to criminal culpability.

The politics of perception

None of this diminishes the political force of the narrative. Elections do not operate on judicial standards or timelines. In the court of public opinion, perception often precedes, and sometimes substitutes, proof.

That tension continues to shape political discourse. Responding to recent court outcomes in coal-related cases, the Kerala unit of the Congress criticised the earlier corruption narrative. In a post on X, it argued that allegations of massive losses—once pegged at Rs. 1.86 lakh crore by former CAG Vinod Rai—had failed to stand up in court due to lack of evidence. It also claimed that the 2G and coal controversies had been used to “turn the country upside down” politically.

The statement went further, naming figures such as Arvind Kejriwal, Anna Hazare, and Narendra Modi, and accusing them of mobilising public opinion around what it described as “manufactured cases”—a claim consistent with the Congress’ long-held position, though firmly contested by its political opponents.

It also linked the corruption narrative to broader economic claims, arguing that India’s growth trajectory weakened after 2014. Such assertions remain part of an ongoing debate, with economists divided on both data and interpretation.

In his book, Kapil Sibal contends that coal allocations largely followed an existing policy framework rather than constituting acts of corruption. Whether or not one accepts this argument, it points to a deeper issue: administrative failure does not always amount to criminal wrongdoing.

Sibal, who served as Telecom Minister during the UPA years, has been particularly critical of how the 2G narrative evolved. He writes: “The CAG, through his outlandish calculation of ‘presumptive loss’, was a godsend for those who wished to enter politics… Ultimately, Vinod Rai’s conclusions and the court’s decision came to naught. However, by that time, those who wished to enter politics were safely ensconced in positions of power.”

The larger lesson

This is not merely a story of scams and acquittals. It is about the complex interplay between politics, policy, and law—domains that intersect but do not always align. There is broad agreement that the mechanisms for allocating natural resources had serious flaws and warranted scrutiny. Yet, as Sibal suggests, contemporary politics runs as much on perception as on power.

What the BJP successfully projected as systemic corruption is, in the Congress’ telling, an example of political amplification overtaking legal substantiation. The so-called “scam era” continues to be contested—not only in courtrooms, but in public memory. Courts move slowly and demand evidence; politics moves swiftly and demands clarity and conviction. This creates an enduring tension. If every policy failure is criminalised, institutions risk overreach. If every allegation is dismissed as mere narrative, accountability erodes.

In that sense, Modi’s “raincoat” remark still resonates. It reflects not only a political manipulation forged in a particular climate, but a deeper democratic reality: legitimacy is shaped as much by narrative as by fact. And once such narratives take hold, they rarely wait for the law to catch up.

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