For protesting against the massive Coalgate scam that took place with
collusion of Congress and BJP, India Against Corruption wouldgherao the
houses of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and BJP President Nitin Gadkari
on August 26, 2012 (Sunday). A peaceful protest would take place at
Jantar Mantar from 10am onwards followed by the gherao to demand immediate cancellation of coal block allocation and setting up of an independent Special Investigation Team (SIT).
Both the major parties – BJP and Congress - have been closely involved
in this Rs 1.86 lakh coal scam, considered to one of the major scams
till date. Along with BJP and Congress, CPM and BJD has also played a
major role in the plunder of this natural resource.
While it is known that the Central Government allocated coal blocks to
private players in an arbitrary manner even to underwear, cassette and gutka manufacturing
companies, the role of various state governments in the allotment
process is also highly questionable. On one hand, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh who was also the Coal Minster during 2006-2009, gave away
coal block at throw away prices to private companies without following a
transparent competitive bidding process on the pretext that it would
lead to cheaper electricity. On the other hand, heads of various state
governments including former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhra Raje
Scindia (BJP), Chattisgarh CM Raman Singh (BJP), Orissa CM Naveen
Patnaik (BJD) and former West Bengal CM Budhadeb Bhattacharya (CPM) had
written to Central Government advising against the bidding process.
Speaking on the issue Arvind Kejriwal said, “Not only centre but many
state government comprising the Left, Right and Centre have colluded to
plunder this country. If the total loss in this scam is estimated to be
approximately 2 lakh crores, considering that there are 6 lakh villages
in India, 30 lakhs were looted from each village.”
Now when the scam has come to light, Congress and BJP have colluded to
stall the proceedings of the both the houses. Day before yesterday, what
happened in Rajya Sabha is highly condemnable with Rajiv Shukla walking
upto the Deputy Chairperson PJ Kurien and whispering to adjourn the
house. Ironically, within minutes the house got adjourned. Today, for
the third day both the houses were adjourned without much debate on the
root cause of the issue.
While the BJP kept on demanding the resignation of PM knowing the fact
that UPA was never going to let that happen. If the opposition was
really worried about the scam it would have asked for an open debate in
the Parliament instead of focusing on resignation of Prime Minister. The
resignation of Prime Minister in no way would lead to unearthing the
depth of the coalgate scam but an independent investigation certainly
would. On the other hand, if the UPA was serious about getting to the
bottom of the issue Rajiv Shukla instead of asking the deputy speaker to
adjourn the house would have asked for a debate by ignoring the ruckus
created by the opposition. Unfortunately, none of the parties raised
their voice for this. Sharing his views, Kumar Vishwas said, “BJP is not
interested in a debate because of its involvement in the scam. If a
debate ensues, names of many BJP chief ministers who were involved in
this plunder would also come out.”
Speaking on the issue Sanjay Singh said, “All parties are united on the
issues of corruption. If Congress is looting the country’s resources at
the Central level, states where BJP is in power is also not far
behind.”
The Coalgate scam has overtaken the 2G spectrum scam which was being
considered the biggest scam so far. If the Supreme Court had recently
cancelled licenses of private players in 2G spectrum scam, why can’t the
licenses of coal blocks be cancelled? To demand for setting up of SIT
as well as cancellation of the license IAC would organise a massive
protest at Jantar Mantar on August 26, 2012 from 10 am onwards, followed
by the gherao of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and BJP President Nitin
Gadkari house simultaneously.
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