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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