Tuesday's closed door meeting comprising Union Minister Jairam Ramesh and in-charge of Congress in Jharkhand BK Hariprasad saw an unusual spat and war of words flaring out. The eyeball-to-eyeball spurt erupted between Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh and his counterpart in Jharkhand Government Chadrashekhar Dubey when they blamed each other for indulging in 'unethical' practices.
The flashpoint reached when Ramesh reportedly asked Dubey to explain about his "interest" in an accident happened at Tata Steel plant, Jamshedpur in November this year. Sources present in the meeting confided to The Pioneer that Ramesh was particularly baffled over Dubey's bid to "blackmail" the steel major while blaming it squarely for the accident that left a contract labourer killed and injuring 11 others.
"Jairam Ramesh enquired about Tata issue and blamed Dadai Dubey for pressurising the company in the backdrop of the mishap. He warned Dubey for that and said that report about this has reached even to the party's central leadership. This irked Dubey who also charged Ramesh of facilitating leases and illegal mining in Saranda area," said a source. Saranda is known for its huge iron ore reserve but no private mining company has officially been allowed to excavate from there.
The blatant remark shocked the Union Minister — who has been quite passionate in accelerating development activities in the heavily Naxal-infested area under the banner of Saranda Development Plan — from inside who retorted with a stern warning to Dubey. "This made the situation to heat up alarmingly. Ramesh told Dubey to behave and said that if you have no understanding about how the things should be conducted then you should put in your papers (from the Hemant Soren Cabinet). The tough reaction softened Dubey," said the source.
The meeting was called to listen to the grievances of the Congress MlAs and their expectations from the coalition Government being run with the party's support. Functioning and conduct of the Congress Ministers came for scrutiny and they were told to pay a heed to the demands of party leaders and of their constituencies. Self-styled behaviour of most of the Ministers came for hammering during the closed door meeting that saw all the Congress MlAs, but three, taking part.
When contacted to verify the input, Dubey confirmed that the Tata Steel mishap issue came up for discussion in the meeting with Jairam Ramesh. "I said that one person got killed and several others got injured at Tata plant and I have made the accident investigated. Trade union people had also apprised me of the incident. I found that it was a fault on the part of Tata on security point of view. All my allegations are correct and no one can level a charge against me," said Dubey on Wednesday. Though, he was non-committal about "Saranda illegal mining" allegation.
Nevertheless after his denial, it is far from being understandable that why the plant mishap came up for discussion at all in the meeting that was called to review functioning of the Ministers from the Congress quota and their embarrassing public statements on policy matters.