People's Democracy

PM must Come Clean in Coalgate Scam: CPI(M) CC

THE hypocrisy of the Congress alleging that the opposition was not allowing the parliament to run has now got exposed with the resignation of two union ministers --- P K Bansal and Ashwini Kumar. If only the government had accepted the opposition demand when it was made --- that these two ministers must resign for their involvement in various scams --- the question of an impasse in the parliament won’t have arisen.

This was what the CPI(M) general secretary, Prakash Karat, said while addressing a media conference at AKG Bhawan in New Delhi on May 13. He was briefing the correspondents about the decisions of the two-day CPI(M) Central Committee meeting on May 11 and 12.

On this occasion the CPI(M) general secretary made it clear that the issue of scams did not end with the said ministers’ resignations. The links of the coal blocks distribution scam can be traced back directly to the prime minister’s office (PMO), as the prime minister was himself looking after this ministry till the other day. A joint secretary in the PMO was among those who saw --- and got changes made in --- the CBI report about the status of investigation into the Coalgate scam, before it was submitted to the Supreme Court.

Questions have also been raised about how a scam was deliberately allowed to take place in the 2G case.

All this has maligned the image of the prime minister who is presiding over this whole edifice of scams. Karat stressed that the CPI(M)’s demand is that the prime minister must help bring the truth to light and come clean about his own role. Relying to queries from mediapersons, he said that the CPI(M) is not, as of today, demanding the prime minister’s resignation. However, he also pointed out, the stand of the main opposition party on this issue has been changing off and on.

About a volley of questions from the floor regarding attempts to form a third front in view of the coming elections, Karat clarified that the CPI(M) did not see any possibility of an all-India platform or front before the elections. It is, however, different regarding a front of the Left parties and of state level adjustments. Yet many people do think that there exists a good prospect of formation of an alternative government, without the Congress or the BJP, after the polls.

The CPI(M) leader also drew attention to the mass of evidences against the Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi, that have come out through the protest petition filed by Mrs Zakia Jafri --- evidences which the Special Investigation Team (STI) had collected but were kept hidden from public view. In view of these evidences, the CPI(M) leader demanded that Narendra Modi must resign forthwith and that charges must be framed against him anew.

Prakash Karat also highlighted the CPI(M)’s disagreements with official texts of the bills on food security and on land acquisition and rehabilitation. While the government wanted o push these bills through in the last session of the parliament, the CPI(M) leader warned that the government must now not even think of adopting the ordinance route to impose these bills on the nation.