After the ‘drama’ which followed the Railway Budget barely a week before, the last thing the government wants is more fireworks in Parliament. Today, it nearly faced the prospect of an encore of sorts after the media spoke of an estimated loss of Rs 10.67 lakh-crore to the exchquer owing to coal block allotment. A wary government soon took the initiative to walk across, and appealed the Opposition to maintain restraint — just before it seemed the situation could go out of hand. What came to the ruling dispensation’s aid was a carefully worded letter from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), stating the pertinent news was “exceedingly misleading”, as the audit report was at a “very preliminary stage and does not even constitute our pre-final draft”.
So, things returned to normalcy by noon despite a ruckus the Opposition created, leading to adjournment of both houses of Parliament as soon as it convened at 11 am.
In fact, the Rajya Sabha saw a departure from the norm soon after it was first adjourned at 11.07 am today. That was when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself took the initiative, and walked up to the JD(U)’s Shivanand Tiwari and CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury to discuss the coal scam. In the Lok Sabha, several party leaders approached UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to discuss the matter.
As for the UPA, the issue had cropped up even in the morning when parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, at the ruling allies’ coordination committee meeting at 10 am, explained the government’s stand to allies, including the Trinamool Congress.
Later, on the floor of the the Lok Sabha, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee stated the government’s position.“It is not a CAG report,” he said. For, that document was yet to be finalised and submitted. Hence, “there is no basis for relying on media reports on the draft”.
The lower house also saw the government taking the help of Speaker Meira Kumar, who summoned all party leaders, including leader of the opposition Sushma Swaraj, to her chamber. An appeal was made to them to let the house function.
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The move was successful, as the government assured the Opposition that it would be open to discussion on the matter once both houses passed the Rail budget and the Union Budget 2012-13. The UPA is keen to get its financial bills passed before the recess on March 30.
Sources in the Congress later alluded to a possible political motive by the Opposition in “planting” this media report to cause embarrassment to an already beleaguered government. A senior Cabinet minister, rationalising the policy on coal blocks thus far, said 62 of the 136 coal blocks went to the power sector. “If they had been auctioned, it would have led to a consequential rise in power tariffs,” he told Business Standard. “Moreover, even under the NDA regime from 1998 to 2003 no coal block was auctioned. So, all we were doing was continuing the policy.”
Opposition leaders, however, demanded a CBI inquiry into the matter. The BJP’s Prakash Javadekar said the coal allotment was a “major” scam. “We demand a CBI probe. A court should monitor the probe.”