Even before the Britam commission has finished its work, it has already yielded some disturbing fruit. Anerood Jugnauth – prime minister when the Britam deal was struck – has told the commission that whole thing, including the rest of the BAI file was being handled by Bhadain alone. Presumably, now that everything has come falling apart, Bhadain alone is to blame. There are two reasons why this neat explanation does not make sense: If we accept that Bhadain alone was at the helm, Jugnauth is simultaneously admitting that the collapse of what was till then the largest insurance conglomerate in the country affecting tens of thousands, was entrusted by the government to a neophyte minister in a newly-minted ministry. Keep in mind that, until then, Bhadain’s only claim to fame was serving as Pravind Jugnauth’s personal lawyer in the Medpoint case. That explanation paints the government (and Anerood Jugnauth himself) in a bad light, as overwhelmed and not really serious at all.

The second reason is that, of late, Anerood Jugnauth has not exactly been the most consistent of sources. Take the recent resignation of the president, Ameenah Gurib-Fakim: first, he says that she did nothing wrong and then, days later, says that all is well when the government succeeded in pushing her to resign. No explanation for this U-turn asked. None given. And on various occasions the government has actually gone out of its way to distance itself from statements from Anerood Jugnauth. Regarding contemporary events, Anerood Jugnauth is a bundle of contradictions so how reliable is he when explaining a relatively complex set of transnational dealings from back in 2015-2016?

It’s clear that the aim of the government is to offload the blame onto Bhadain by ignoring the role of others such as the shadowy Dev Manraj and the former finance minister, Vishnu Lutchmeenaraidoo, in this whole affair. To this extent, Bhadain is correct in his outrage. But his case also has feet of clay.  He insists that the whole thing was everybody else’s fault. But to do that, he has to admit three things, and hurt his own politics in the process: first, that he was merely used in the games of others. In that case, who would follow a party led by an outsmarted puppet? The second is that he cannot simply insist that the BAI and Britam were orchestrated by others, but that his own role in that is above reproach. He cannot have his cake and eat it too. He will have to accept some responsibility. But that will also mean denting his political credentials somewhat. And the third (and this flows from the second) is that he cannot simply criticise the government for all this but insist at the same time that he was doing good by exposing a corrupt Labour Party at the same time. If the government was right in targeting the BAI, then why is Bhadain criticising them? If everything was mishandled and this was political vengeance, then why was Bhadain supporting them? This contradictory narrative has only isolated Bhadain and made him look like a used serviette: discard after use.

These contradictions at the heart of Bhadain’s politics are no secret: it’s why he failed to win back his seat in No.18 and why others – seeing the writing on the wall – have deserted his party in droves. One-man shows scarcely succeed in politics: particularly when that man wants to have it both ways.