Conspiracy of missing files

Parliament was again thrown into bedlam on Tuesday. Though not a new feature, Tuesday’s disruptions, finally leading to the adjournment of the two Houses till Thursday, were not without a valid reason. For, it was no small matter that mysteriously, hundreds of files of the coal ministry had gone missing. Since the CBI was investigating the multi-billion coal scam, the disappearance of files pertaining to the period in which arbitrary allocations of coal blocks were made, smacks of an internal conspiracy. The Apex Court is monitoring the investigations. Notably, the CAG, in its report, had first laid bare how hundreds of coal mining leases were given by the government without following any objective criterion. Significantly, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was the cabinet-minister in-charge of the coal ministry when these questionable allocations were made. Among the beneficiaries were a number of companies connected directly and indirectly with several Congress leaders. Other beneficiaries of the UPA largesse lacked experience in the mining field, but had cornered licences by using `other means.’ Minister of State for Coal Sriprakash Jaiswal was reported to have favoured a company, for allocation of coal blocks, with which he had past association. All the above allegations were to be investigated fully when the CBI came up with a huge roadblock. Among the missing files were those which listed the minutes of the high-level screening committee meeting, at which the decision to allocate coal blocks was taken. Unless these files are found, or reconstructed with the help of documents available with the CAG and the public sector monopoly Coal India Ltd., the probe can make little headway. Given that a number of powerful politicians and well-connected business houses had cornered these allocations, the disappearance of the concerned files further strengthens the suspicion of wrongdoing. In view of the above background, there was no surprise that the BJP-led Opposition in both Houses forcefully raised the matter. It would have been in the fitness of things if the prime minister himself had come forward to allay the apprehensions of the members, especially when he was the minister in-charge at the time of the dubious allocations. But Manmohan Singh stayed away from the two Houses, leaving the clumsy Jaiswal to respond to the opposition onslaught. The opposition said that Jaiswal himself was a suspect, having played the peacemaker among members of a family which was allocated a coal block, and, therefore, he should desist from making a statement in the House. Instead, Singh as the minister in-charge of the coal ministry at the time of the controversial allocations, should volunteer the statement, the opposition held. But the PM chose to stay away from the two Houses when these were plunged into bedlam over his questionable coal allocations. It is notable that in defiance of the Apex Court order, the then Law Minister Ashwani Kumar had sought to tinker with the draft report of the CBI in the Coalgate scam, resulting in his removal. The draft report was to be submitted to the Apex Court, detailing the progress of investigations.

Meanwhile, the ruckus over the missing coal ministry files denied the ruling party a pretext to grandstand on the so-called Food Security Bill. Dubbed the vote-security Bill by the opposition, a sycophantic ruling party was out to somehow get the parliamentary nod for the measure in order to associate it with the late Rajiv Gandhi’s birth anniversary on Tuesday. The posthumous deification of Rajiv Gandhi might cost the honest taxpayers a pretty penny, but a party tied to the tether of 10 Janpath would do so most brazenly, so long as his widow remains in its control. The crude myth-making project evokes derision among the ordinary Indians, but Congress ministers and ministries see percentage in lavishing crores of rupees on eulogising him with an eye on the members of his family. Such naked dance of dynastic hagiography, which results in various projects, roads, bridges, railway stations, etc. to be named after him, might well be an affront to a democratic polity but so long as it is done by spending taxpayers’ rupees, the Congress leaders are unlikely to desist. The ad spend on the Rajiv Gandhi birth anniversary is in indirect proportion to his achievements, if any, as prime minister. The ad spend on Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary is a tiny fraction of the ad spend on Rajiv Gandhi’s, but his contribution far exceeds that of all the members of the Nehru-Gandhi family, past and present, put together.