Congress blackens own face yet again
But for the Congress's ridiculous explanations over the missing files relating to the coal block allocation issue, Parliament would have on Tuesday taken up a structured discussion on the National Food Security Bill. Ever since the Union Minister for Coal Sriprakash Jaiswal made the shocking revelation that some 60 files pertaining to the controversial allocation of coal blocks have gone ‘missing', party leaders have been trotting out one silly excuse after another to downplay the issue. What takes the cake is the Coal Minister's reported remark that the search for the missing files is taking time because all the files have been stored in a ‘vertical' manner, and that they are being now repositioned in a ‘horizontal' fashion to facilitate the search operation! Nobody is interested in the methodology of storage of files, but everyone wants to know how the files have gone missing. It cannot be a coincidence that of the 60 odd files that have disappeared, at least 16 are sought by the Supreme Court which is monitoring the probe that the Central Bureau of Investigation is conducting into the infamous allocation scam. Caught on the wrong foot, Mr Jaiswal, who has been mismanaging the Coal Ministry ever since he took charge and has presented a less than credible defence of all that has gone wrong in the ministry, weakly sought to turn the tables on the Bharatiya Janata Party. He said that he is prepared for any ‘punishment' if he is proven guilty, but wondered what punishment the BJP would accept if the party comes out in the wrong. He is apparently referring to the period when the BJP-led NDA was in power and coal blocks had been allocated. The BJP has never shied from a full-blown investigation; in fact, it has challenged the ruling UPA to probe into decisions during its tenure at the Centre as well. Given that Mr Jaiswal enjoys little credibility after all that has happened, the BJP on Tuesday naturally trashed his defence as being totally unacceptable and demanded that the Prime Minister make a statement on the floor of the two Houses over the recent developments, specifically in the case of the missing files. Parliament was disrupted on Tuesday partly as a result of the Opposition seeking a clear and credible answer from the Government.
As the leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Mr Arun Jaitley, remarked, files don't just disappear; they are made to disappear. Especially when, if what leader of the Opposition in the lok Sabha, Ms Sushma Swaraj, said is true —that the missing files have the names of certain Congress leaders who could be implicated in the scam. The Congress-led regime had tried earlier to derail investigations by seeking to doctor the probe report, and was exposed before the country. It is unlikely to get away with this new attempt to delay the investigation. It is to be hoped that the Supreme Court will take cognisance of the shenanigans of the ruling party.