You've got to hand it to Congress

Congress president Sonia Gandhi feels accused ministers, particularly railway minister Pawan Bansal, should be allowed to step down on moral grounds after making a personal statement in Parliament.

But a majority of the party’s core group members who met at prime minister Manmohan Singh’s residence on Sunday evening want to keep the resignations in abeyance.

The leaders, however, endorsed Gandhi’s view that law minister Ashwani Kumar will have to go — if there is any reflection on him in the next Supreme Court hearing on May 8 in connection with the public interest litigation on the CBI inquiry into the coal block allocation scam — to cleanse the council of ministers.

Sources said Gandhi was convinced after a two-hour debate that Bansal’s resignation would be an admission of guilt even before charges are proven. Also, there is no end in sight that the opposition would end its parliamentary logjam.

Parliamentary affairs minister Kamal Nath and minister for personal (in charge of CBI) V Narayanasamy joined the core group in the middle of the meeting to brief leaders.

Nath, who has opened backroom channels with opposition leaders saw no end in opposition attack or any willingness on their part to allow the passage of Gandhi’s two pet bills related to food security and land acquisition after sacrificing two ministers in the remaining two days of the session on May 9 and 10.

“No decision” was the cryptic official reaction. A top Congress leader present at the meeting, however, said a critical political implication compelled the party not to show the door to Bansal immediately.

Briefing reporters, information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari said an inquiry is underway as far as the railway minister is concerned. “He (rail minister) has welcomed investigations. Let us not prejudge the issue so far he is concerned. And in case of the law minister, the matter is subjudice and is scheduled to come up before the court on May 8,” he said.

Party leaders are also riding on the results of Karnataka elections, where the Congress is expected to romp to a victory and thereby blunt the opposition edge. “We do not want screaming headlines of ministers resigning for taking bribe to cloud our victory in  Karnataka,” one party leader said.

Based on a briefing by the CBI, he said the prime minister pointed out that the agency does not suspect any role of the railway minister as its investigations so far have shown a businessman friend of his nephew was throwing his weight to extract money from the high railway official citing his contacts with Bansal. 

The PM was quoted as saying the agency is still investigating his exact role and as such it would be wrong to make the railway minister a scapegoat.

The members also took note of NDA convener and Janata Dal(U) president Sharad Yadav surprisingly not faulting Bansal like the BJP and rather giving him a clean chit. “If any relative of a political leader is involved in corruption, what is the fault of that leader. I have known Pawan Bansal for a long time. He has been in Parliament for a long time. What has he to do with anything if his nephew is taking bribe or if someone else takes bribe in his nephew’s house,” Yadav said.

Those who attended the core group meeting included Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmad Patel, defence minister AK Antony, home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, finance minister P Chidambaram and minister of state for personnel (CBI) V Narayanasamy.

Though the CBI is likely to admit before the Supreme Court on Monday that the law minister asked for some language to be diluted in the agency’s report on the coal investigation before the document was given to the judges, the court will conduct a hearing only on May 8.

Ahead of the core group meeting, Bansal met the PM and even explained his position to the core group on Saturday. On Sunday defence minister AK Antony was closeted with Sonia Gandhi at her residence 10 Janpath ahead of the Congress meeting.

In another development, the Congress on Sunday appointed a new team of spokespersons droping Rashid Alvi from the team. While Janardan Dwivedi will continue to head the team, Raj Babbar, Shakeel Ahmed, Mohan Prakash, Meem Afzal, and Bhakta Charan Das have been included in the eight-member team. Renuka Chowdhury, PC Chacko and Sandeep Dikshit have been retained as spokespersons.