UPA may not put Bansal, Kumar on chopping block for now

Seeking to fight the corruption allegations and charges of impropriety against Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and Law Minister Ashwani Kumar legally, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is unlikely to take immediate action against either, sources said.

However, Bansal stayed away from a meeting of the Union Cabinet today, triggering speculation he might be considering to step down on his own.

Later, Information and Broadcasting Minister  Manish Tewari clarified the railway minister stayed away because of indisposition and also because there was nothing on the agenda relating to his ministry. He added the minister had welcomed a suo moto inquiry by CBI and said the ‘investigation must be allowed to play itself out’. Party sources, however, added if Bansal were asked by the CBI to come for questioning, there would be no choice but to ask him to go.

Meanwhile, Bansal’s nephew Vijay Singla was sent to judicial custody today on the charge he took bribe from Railway Board member Mahesh Kumar to facilitate a lateral promotion.

Some ministers say Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s own reputation for probity is under threat and have asked the government to remove both through a Cabinet reshuffle. As of now, there is no clarity whether such a reshuffle would take place.

Attorney General G E Vahanvati and Ashwani Kumar were in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) today. While Vahanvati reportedly met the PM, Kumar denied he had a meeting.

The problems facing the government are many. Additional Solicitor-General Harin Raval has already resigned from his post and has alleged he was asked to give an “untrue” affidavit to the Supreme Court with the full knowledge of Vahanvati.

So, if Raval has quit, so should Vahanvati and so should all the officials – from the ministry of Coal and the PMO - who met CBI officials probing the coal scam. It was this meeting which led the Supreme Court to describe the CBI as a “caged parrot that has many masters”.

“How can we ask the officials to resign? And why should the minister resign when it is the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) that the court has criticised?” asked a minister.

Some ministers said the issue will come up only in the monsoon session of Parliament when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will rake it up. Till then, there was no rush to remove the ministers unless the court passed more strictures (in Kumar’s case) or the CBI found clinching evidence (in the case of Bansal).

Either way, there was no evidence that any action would be taken against either minister until the government was forced to act.

BJP, however, kept up the pressure, demanding the law minister’s resignation immediately as it had brought the CBI into disrepute. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) echoed this demand. “It is now clear that the CBI is actually the Congress Bureau of Investigation. So the sooner the law minister tenders his resignation, the batter it will be for the institution and the country,” said Sitaram Yechury of the CPI(M).