Law minister silent, but opposition continue to pressure Congress

Until recently, Law Minister Ashwani Kumar was always willing to give his opinion or jump into a debate on any issue, whether or not he was directly involved. He would also take the onus on himself to defend the Congress Party and the Prime Minister’s Office. But since the news broke of his alleged diktat to the CBI chief to dilute its status report on Coalgate, he has not only failed to make a statement, he hasn’t even given a brief sound bite to the media. Today, no matter how much the opposition clamoured for his presence and a statement on the Coalgate issue, the Minister was conspicuously absent from Parliament. Even his ministerial colleagues, notably minister of state for parliamentary affairs Rajeev Shukla, had trouble locating him. [caption id=“attachment_719372” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Ashwani Kumar has been conspicuous by his silence. Reuters[/caption] However, given the sensitivity of Coalgate, which reaches all the way to the doorsteps of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the opposition is not about to let the issue go away quietly. The alleged instance of Law Minister and PMO pressurizing the CBI to tone down the status report, and the lopsided draft report prepared by JPC chairman PC Chacko on 2G, are the twin issues that the opposition thinks will put the ruling Congress on the defensive. The BJP, on the one hand, had given notices, along with the AIADMK, to suspend question hour on the Law Minister’s interference in the CBI’s investigation of Coalgate. On the other hand, it was moving in tandem with the DMK on the issue of impropriety by the JPC chairman, Chacko, for consistently refusing A Raja’s requests to be called as a witness and leakage of the draft report to the media. The BJP has also demanded the removal of Ashwini Kumar. In face of an all out attack it from various quarters on Coalgate, 2G and outrage over a horrific rape case, the government considered it appropriate to discuss the rape case even as it took flak for Sonia Gandhi’s remarks - “now words alone are not enough, we need action” - and the complete insensitivity of the Delhi Police. The government would not like to take up the issue of Kumar and the CBI status report on Coalgate in Parliament until April 26, the date by which CBI director Ranjit Sinha is expected to file his affidavit in the Supreme Court. Similarly, the JPC is scheduled to meet on April 25 to clear the draft report which has given a clean chit to PM Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, rubbishes the CAG’s presumptive loss figure of Rs 1.76 lakh crore and put the blame on A Raja. The meeting will most likely be stormy and the opposition might even have a majority of committee members on its side and be able to reject Chacko’s draft report and present an alternate ‘dissent” report. Again, the government does not want to take up issue in the House before it is settled in the JPC. As BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu said, “the issue does not end today. The government has to face the House tomorrow also”. Interestingly, the two parties, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, on whose support the Congress is critically dependent for adoption of its report in the JPC, have not given a clue to their thinking. They preferred to focus on atrocities against women. The Coalgate issue, which rocked Parliament’s monsoon session last year following a CAG report revealing that there was total lack of transparency in the allocation of coal blocks to private players and resulted in the loss of a whopping Rs 1.85 lakh crore to the exchequer, has somewhat been put on the political backburner. Fresh revelations that the Law Minister and PMO officials pressurized the CBI to dilute the scam status report, brought the issue to life again. The government may find a way to avoid Parliament until the Coalgate affidavit and the 2G draft report are settled in the Supreme Court and JPC meeting respectively. But the opposition is looking at it differently and the impact could be politically volatile for the government.