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Analysis | Share This Page | |||||||||||||||
BJP’s Hollow Attack on PM! |
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by Dr. Rajinder Puri |
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The current demand for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s resignation on account of the statement of Mr. PC Parakh, former Coal Secretary when the PM was the Coal Minister, is laughable. The demand sounds ridiculous not because the PM should not resign, but because of the timing and occasion for making this demand. The reason adduced for demanding his resignation is that the PM was the final signatory to approve coal block allotment of 15 percent to the Aditya Birla firm in a joint venture with Public Sector Units. The deal was signed in 2005.
A prime democratic norm is the principle of constructive responsibility that ought to be observed by any minister dealing with affairs that fall under his jurisdiction. Have our worthy political leaders heard of this principle which provides the basis of democracy? It seems not. Cabinet Minister Mr. Kamal Nath actually told a TV interviewer that as Minister he signed hundreds of files and therefore could not be expected to know details of all what he was signing. “This is how the government works,” he said. Indeed it does. But this is not how any government in a functioning democracy ought to work. This work style makes mockery of democratic functioning which is based upon accountability.
Mr. Sinha has fallen into the trap. Suppose for argument’s sake not a single chit or telltale file were to incriminate the PM. Would that let the PM off the hook? Is a minister to be deemed responsible for corruption in his department only if he personally has his hand in the till? The total absence of the concept of constructive responsibility from our politics is the bane of Indian democracy. If that principle had been observed appropriately perhaps not a single leader of the government or the opposition would have survived in office. Most currently the Supreme Court has castigated the CBI for dereliction of duty in its investigation of the Nira Radia tapes. After studying the transcripts of the tapes the Court stated:
The Court wondered why the CBI despite knowledge of the contents in the tapes did not act for four years. It is this same CBI which is being heeded by the opposition with such touching faith in the latest chapter of the coal blocks scam. The opposition is up in arms because the PM can be targeted. But what was the opposition doing for these many past years when the PM and the entire cabinet could be targeted on much stronger ground? The real question has never been whether the PM and the entire cabinet should be made to resign. The question is for which of the half a dozen scams in which the cabinet was responsible should it have been sacked. But never mind the countless occasions when in deference to the principle of constructive responsibility this government should have resigned. Beyond that there was occasion when the Prime Minister and his senior colleagues were guilty of abetting corruption and therefore deserved not only to resign but to face prosecution in a court of law.
Did not the cabinet’s knowledge of Mr. Raja’s actions and failure to act make it complicit in the abetment of corruption? On September 29, 2011 all this was pointed out in these columns with the demand that the PM and the cabinet should be sacked and be prosecuted for abetment of corruption for which if guilty the ministers could undergo five years of imprisonment. One can only wonder who decides its strategy! If Mr. Rahul Gandhi becomes PM before 2014 would it not help him in the polls? CBI Director Ranjit Sinha was a favourite of Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and Mr. Ram Jethmalani (a Mrs. Gandhi loyalist then) when CBI protected Lalu Yadav in the Fodder Scam. Readers might recall that earlier I had drawn attention to a photograph taken in Mrs. Gandhi’s study in 10 Janpath showing Coalgate accused Manoj Jayaswal accompanied by Congress MP Vijay Darda, also Coalgate accused, and Mrs. Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel, presenting a bouquet of flowers to Mrs. Gandhi. The file containing the recommendation letter from Mr. Darda to allot a coal block to Manoj Jayaswal is among the missing Coalgate files. I wrote that Mrs. Gandhi owed an explanation to the public about the circumstances which led to her meeting with Manoj Jayaswal in her study. Through mutual contacts the photograph and the article were circulated to all the top BJP leaders. None of them took up the issue of the missing file. But BJP leaders are busy slamming Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. So knowingly or unknowingly, whose purpose are BJP leaders serving? |
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21-Oct-2013 | ||||||||||||||||
More by : Dr. Rajinder Puri | ||||||||||||||||
Views: 1198 Comments: 5 | ||||||||||||||||
Comments on this Article
shiv 10/24/2013 23:36 PM
Dinesh Kumar Bohre 10/22/2013 12:45 PM
My Word 10/22/2013 08:57 AM
Dinesh Kumar Bohre 10/22/2013 07:47 AM
Amit Thakur 10/22/2013 07:00 AM |
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