Coal deadlock in Parliament: BJP tries to unite opposition ahead of Speaker’s meet

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi,August 24,2012: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is trying to unite the opposition ahead of an all-party meet called by the Speaker to end the deadlock in Parliament over the government auditor’s report on coal allocation, sources have told NDTV

The main Opposition party, which leads the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), wants to meet all opposition leaders ahead of the Monday meeting, sources said, adding that NDA convenor Sharad Yadav has extended invites to Samajwadi Party’s Mulayam Singh Yadav, Bhaujan Samaj Party’s Mayawati, Telugu Desam Party’s Chandrababu Naidu and also some Left leaders.

Meanwhile, Parliament was adjourned till noon today  after the Opposition refused to let the house function for the fourth day in a row.

An all-party meeting called by the Rajya Sabha Chairman to end the impasses failed to find a solution yesterday. The Chairman had called the meeting after a cacophonous BJP paralysed Parliament for the third day in a row, demanding the Prime Minister’s resignation over what is being called "Coal-gate."

So far the BJP has said it will accept nothing less than the resignation of Dr Manmohan Singh for allegedly allowing private firms to gain thousands of crores because they were sold hugely under-priced coal fields. It has rejected the Congress-led government’s offer that the PM will make a statement on the matter, which can also be debated on the floor of Parliament. The BJP has said it will not allow Parliament to get to work till Dr Singh accepts responsibility for "Coal-Gate" and quits, a possibility shot down by the ruling Congress as "preposterous."

Each hour of Parliament in session costs Rs. 25 lakh. So over the last  two days, two crores have been wasted. The Leader of the Lok Sabha Sushil Kumar Shinde is, meanwhile, making every effort to ensure more Parliament time is not wasted. Mr Shinde, who is also the Home Minister, met Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj of the BJP yesterday afternoon and later said that he hoped a solution would be found when Parliament resumed on Monday. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has, meanwhile, sent out a tough message to her MPs saying, don’t be defensive, attack.

The coal controversy is pivoted on a report by the national auditor which said that private players got ’windfall gains’ of upto 1.86 lakh crores between 2005 and 2009 because they were not made to bid for coal fields. Instead, they were allotted coal fields at a fraction of their value.  Because the PM was Coal Minister for a part of this period, the BJP says the alleged swindle - being investigated now by the CBI - took place on his watch.

The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has been described as faulty by the government and has been seized by the opposition as evidence of the government’s alleged ineptitude and tolerance of corruption.  

"We believe we have a compelling case," said Law Minister Salman Khurshid,  faulting the BJP for not allowing a debate. The government says that the BJP knows it is on shaky moral ground -  in 2005, when the government suggested that  using an auction to assign coal fields would increase transparency, several states governed by the BJP objected on record. 

The government has said that at the time, the state-run Coal India Limited was not able to meet the demands of a growing economy. The law at the time did not allow for coal fields to be auctioned. Creating consensus among political parties and other stake-holders, and then introducing new administrative and legal guidelines, would take time. So a screening committee with representatives of state governments assigned the coal fields to different firms. The national auditor has said that there appears to be no clear record of how recipients were chosen; it finds that the allocations were made largely on the basis of recommendations by state governments.

Courtesy : NDTV