Summer sun temperature rising, along with that election heat rising high to the maximum, even in between, the two book bomb were fired by two former secretaries that has resulted in such a situation, where people are hoping to see the headline sooner than later "PM. Manmohan Singh resigned on moral grounds ".
Former coal secretary P.C.Parakh released his book "Crusader or Conspirator ? Coalgate and other Truths", that was was unveiled by former Supreme Court Justice G.S.Singhvi. In the book Parakh put a straight forward verdict on the role of our prime minister and said,"Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was unfortunately not able to control his ministers like Shibu Soren and Dasari Narayan Rao who stoutly opposed Parakh's proposal of competitive bidding of coal blocks".
Parakh said,"The fact is that if there was political will, open bidding could have been implemented in 2004. While claiming that there resistance from opposition-ruled states, and that the proposed change to competitive bidding required consensus, the PM made no mention of the concerted and repeated attempts of Rao and Soren to obstruct, sabotage and stall open bidding,".
The book claimed MoS, Coal, Dasari Narayan Rao tried to create confusion over the policy and Soren, who later became coal minister, used it to reverse the PM's decision. Later, when the proposal was revived following Soren's resignation in March 2005 and PM taking over the coal ministry, the matter was again allegedly scuttled with Rao returning the file to the ministry in January 2006 with a note: "PMO had taken the view that the required amendment to Coal Mines Nationalisation Act is a time consuming exercise and has allowed the department to proceed with allocation of captive coal blocks under the extant mechanism."
Parakh has categorically blamed on the weakness of the prime minister in his book, "PM was unable to counter vested interests within his government and party" though the PM was keen on implementing competitive bidding. The government's inability to take the right decision at the right time has resulted in Coalgate and subsequent CBI investigations monitored by the Supreme Court. To save its skin, the government has resorted to hasty and arbitrary cancellation of allocations. All this has resulted in policy paralysis," .
Parakh has also written a chapter in the defence of former C&AG Vinod Rai who had exposed the Coalgate scam. "The CAG was unfairly accused of overstepping his constitutional mandate and contributing to policy paralysis and slowdown of the economy,".
Parakh exposed the vested interest holding Coal Ministry to ransom, questioning how only coal sector related issues lingered while the same prime minster took positive stances on other issues as described in the book,"This stance is unfortunate. The government went all out on issues like the Indo-US nuclear deal and FDI in retail despite opposition from a large spectrum of political opinion. It did not show similar determination in opening up the coal sector for commercial mining where the resistance was only from left parties and CIL unions,".
INDIA HONEST has very high regards for the honesty and integrity of the economist prime minister Dr.Manmohan Singh, and the same was also echoed by Parakh, who lamented on the PM's helplessness, and said, "I do not know if the country would have got a better PM if Dr Manmohan Singh had resigned, instead of facing the humiliation of his own ministers not implementing or even reversing his decisions. By continuing to head a government in which he had little political authority, his image has been seriously dented by 2G and Coalgate although he has had a spotless record of personal integrity."
IH surprises, how long the internally and mentally bold Sardar will be able to hold the answer to the question, who stopped him to thwart attempts by the ministers Rao and Soren to hijack coal mines ? Was it someone in high command ? If not disclosed , this blame will stick to him always in history books, which the honest Sardar will never tolerate ?
This prompts INDIA HONEST to predict convincingly that people are anticipating a fair VRS welfare message from the deeply humiliated PM, on the verge of the last few days of his political career, the big headline expected sooner than later on media that "PM. Manmohan Singh resigned on moral grounds ".