)
Neither railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal nor law minister Ashwani Kumar will quit immediately. The Congress party has decided to fight it out, on the grounds that the charges against both are unproven. The party has also called a meeting of its parliamentary party to explain to MPs what their defence against attacks by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) should be.
After an extended meeting of the party's core committee, information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari said the Supreme Court on Wednesday would assess the gravity of the "alterations" made by the law minister in an affidavit on the coal block allocation scam filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The agency is still investigating charges of bribery against the railway minister's nephew, Vijay Singla, who was paid by a secretary-level officer, Mahesh Prasad, to secure a lucrative promotion. The Congress will wait to see the view taken by the court before it decides if action should be taken against the ministers.
While the window of opportunity for Kumar is short, in Bansal's case, it may take time for CBI to exonerate him fully.
Meanwhile, the CBI today arrested one more accused in the railway bribery scandal, taking the total number of those apprehended to nine, news agency PTI reported. Sunil Dagga was arrested by a CBI team in the capital.
The Congress has been emboldened to take this no-resignation-now position by two events. First, it expects the Karnataka elections to go in its favour. And, the decision taken by both India and China to move back to their "old" position on the border.
On the railway minister, party leader Janardan Dwivedi made a terse two-line observation in the afternoon: that Bansal had already explained the issue to the party and nothing more should be expected from him at this stage. He added some people suffered from a disease of calling for resignations, referring indirectly to the BJP.
Bansal himself had issued a statement in the morning, stating that though Singla was his nephew, there were no commercial dealings between them, nor was there any question of letting any member of his family run his office.
Bansal, sources said, had told the Core Committee the money that changed hands (between railway board member Mahesh Kumar, who is supposed to have paid Singla to get him a promotion to a job that was more lucrative), was actually for a land deal. Why a minister was entering into a land deal with a bureaucrat at around the time his promotion was due wasn't explained.
CBI has also registered a charge of 'illegal gratification' against Kumar and Singla. Kumar was suspended last night. All this suggests Bansal's argument is somewhat thin, but the Congress is not questioning it right now.
BJP leader Satpal Jain, also from Chandigarh, and a bitter rival of Bansal, has produced evidence that refutes the assertion that Bansal and Singla did not have a commercial relationship. He says there were 11 companies on which either Bansal or Singla or both, along with other members of their family, were directors. But Congress leaders pooh-poohed this, claiming this did not constitute misconduct.
One thing is clear, however: this Parliament session is a washout and could end sooner than expected, because the BJP is now even less likely to let the House function. Meanwhile, Congress spokesman Rashid Alvi was dropped from his post for his remark that Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi ought to be riding a buffalo, the traditional vehicle of the Hindu God of death.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi, as well as the chairman of the media cell, Janardan Dwivedi, had taken a dim view of this. Three other office-bearers-Raj Babbar, Mim Afzal and Bhaktacharan Das, MP from Kalahandi-have been appointed spokespersons.
A major party reshuffle is planned for the middle of the month, after the Parliament session is over.
