Terming the corruption charges levelled by Team Anna against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as “reckless”, Minister for Planning Ashwini Kumar on Wednesday said the insinuations deserved to be treated with contempt.
“I would only like to say that even to rebut these disgusting insinuations is in a way giving respectability to those allegations. I would like, as a responsible citizen, to treat them with the contempt they deserve”, Mr. Kumar said on the sidelines of a function here.
Team Anna, for the first time last Saturday, had clubbed the Prime Minister with 14 of his Cabinet colleagues, calling them corrupt and demanded an enquiry.
The allegation against the Prime Minister was based on a leaked draft CAG report on coal block allocations between 2004 and 2009 when coal ministry was with Manmohan Singh.
The draft CAG report purportedly claimed that the nation lost a whopping Rs 10.7 trillion as undue favours were bestowed on some commercial entities.
The Prime Minister has rebutted the charge and said he would quit public life if the allegations were proved true.
Besides Dr. Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the Cabinet ministers against whom Team Anna had demanded a probe by SIT included P Chidambaram, Sharad Pawar, SM Krishna, Kamal Nath, Praful Patel, Vilasrao Deshmukh, Virbhadra Singh, Kapil Sibal, Salman Khurshid, GK Vasan, Farooq Abdullah, M Alagiri and Sushil Kumar Shinde.
Asserting that national accomplishments must not be negated by reckless insinuations, Mr. Kumar said, criticising public figures had become an almost daily affair today.
“People must give a befitting reply to these self-proclaimed moral sermonisers, who must first look inwards and see whether they have the moral credentials to talk of public morality”, Mr. Kumar said, adding, freedom of expression has certain limits.
“Criticism becomes reckless when it is based on completely untenable and unsubstantiated facts...then it becomes destructive”, the minister said.
Alleging that Team Anna was indulging in “destructive practises”, he said, “I think what some members of Team Anna are doing is destroying a constructive national discourse“.
Pointing out that the final CAG report is yet to be out, he said, “if on the basis of certain leaked passages of a draft (CAG) report you want to orchestrate a national campaign against the PM, all I can say is that it is so reckless and motivated”.
Keywords: Team Anna, Coal allocation scam, Manmohan Singh, corrupt ministers' list, UPA government, political scandals, PMO refutal
The UPA government is looting the country with both hands. There are
scams on scams .NOw the PM is under the direct attack, CBI enquiry is
just eye wash to public. how can a servant can investigate his own
master.. the coal was not sold by the open bid as suggested by the
coalsecy. KEJRIWAL is right in questioning that who will enquire
against Senior ministers and prime minister . There is no independant
agency to bring these persons to book. In fact Thosand and thousands
of Crores of public money is looted in these scams. There was no need
to enhance petrol price if the coal was sold by open bid . There is
valid question by ANNA team why the primeminister rejected the plea of
COAL sect.. Mr RAJA was sent to jail on the same allegation as is
facing Manmohan singh by his wrong act ,country has lost About One Lac
sevety thousand crores of rupee which was sufficent to meet the loss
of petrol hike .so it is suggested that a independent authority who
should not be under control in govt.
If the Indian Prime Minister knows nothing about the Bn $ scandals rocking the country for past few years under his 'honest' leadership , means he is ignorant of ground realities and does not deserve to be Prime Minister.
If he does ,and turned a blind eye , is he a collaborator in crime?” Let citizens of India decide .
Atleast now , hearing the hue and cry across the country and in the media , cannot he initiate investigations and accept Team Anna suggestion for a independent SIT . After all if his ministers are innocent , they will only be exonerated by the SIT.
Action and its beneficial result for the nation should be cited for defence of a leader. Public scrutiny is part and parcel of political persona, however high mighty. It is emergency rule of 1975-77 that one is seeing in India; sans its declaration. With rupee tumbling in international market of currencies and slave like pursuance of 'Nuclear Deal' is there any credibility left with UPA to talk big?! It is ruling dispensation that needs to look within! Patriotic feelings are NOT displayed even occasinally! SAD and thoroughly disappointed citizen is lamenting here!
Sir, It is most unfortunate that PM's name has been dragged in the
corruption charges levelled by Team Anna. But I hasten to say that they
have not done it with malice or without submitting any material
evidence, which they consider as supporting their charges. True, many in
our country regard Manmohan Singh as a 'clean' politician. But the
correct approach would be to answer every evidence put against him and
not ridicule the allegations by mere notions and beliefs.
"Mr. Kumar said, criticising public figures had become an almost daily affair today", this has become very common sentence for Politicians. How does it matters if he is a public figure or not? Does he means that a public figure will not be corrupt? There should be an investigation done based on these reports to prove whether they are true or just allegations. Again, these investingaing or inquire team should not be controlled by government for they are just like puppets in goverment's control and there is no point at all in doing these investigation.
I personally believe there is no need for any politician to cry over the recent allegations of team Anna. The Prime minister himself has come forward saying that he is ready to have himself scrutinized. Just because he is the prime minister, does Dr.Manmohan Singh have any special protection? If he does then it is wrong in a democracy. All the shitty politicians should be put through intense scrutiny and anyone found guilty must be given severe punishment. But can we expect that in India. Certainly not. Look at A.Raja and Suresh Kalmadi. It has been proved beyond any doubt that they are involved at more than one level in the scams that they headed and yet we do not prosecute them. Instead they go back to parliament. Dr.Manmohan Singh might not have committed any economic offense but the fact that as head of the State he did not do anything about his ministers embezzling money makes him a party to crime.
Prime Minister should demonstrate his honesty and integrity through presenting himself for investigations befor SIT as genuinely suggested under the supervision of the CJI and getting exonerated from allegations. Simply to quit if charges are proved is not the correct approach. PM should not be honest but must be seen honest. Dr Amrit Patel
CAG report is sacrosanct if the report blames A.Raja or others. But it has no value if it casts aspersions on the Prime Minister.The Congress party has a very poor opinion indeed of the intelligence of the people of this country!
What else can we expect from the ruling party and that too from
PM's colleague "Inam inathaiye serum" is a tamil proverb.
Jai Ho SRIRAM,
All you BJP and Team Anna want to throw out the present Govt and create chaos or
take over govt. But all these non-sense is going to either be forgotten or chaos.
Indians are much more sensible and would send back where you belong.
There is much for the Congress party and the UPA government it leads to be worried about. The diaclosure by Team Anna is clearly explosive stuff.
Real Sikhandi is in Team Anna. The big old man is shielding the core group and in turn they are using his name for their ulterior motives. Let them define the CORRUPTION first. What is the meaning of taking excessive fees for their legal clients and sucking their blood? The entire team is blocking the development of the nation.
"Allocation of coal blocks was never looked upon as a potental source for generating revenue for the central government."
This is what the Prime Minister's office has said in reply to charges against him when he was in charge of coal ministry. Government needs no revenue from the vast coal resources available in the country since that will affect infracture development in the country. But govrnment was not alloting coal blocks to infrastructure developers. Corporates like Reliance took them and bagged the profitet. And what is the policy of the government with regard to the other energy source
that is petroliem products. Make maximum money by raising price periodically. What may be advanced as defence arguements in enquiry or investigation may not be allowed to stall an independent investigation. Let an enquiry take place. Government may place these thingsbefore the enquiry commisssion.
Team "Anna" has definitely crossed their limits this time. As if fasting
to death and holding the whole system to ransom was not enough, they now
think they have the authority to come up with a report charging everyone
they deem fit with corruption. I am not pro-congress, and want
corruption to end but team anna is creating a bigger issue than
corruption by flouting all the other authorities and investigative
agencies and doing their own thing. What next? A parallel government? An
alternate constitution?
Instead of blaming Team Anna, all Politicians must look inwards and see how much they are getting as corrupt money.
We fully support Team Anna. Small countries with little revenue in terms of tax, duties,etc can develop so much, why not India with so much of taxes & duties. Because of this corruption.
Please Email the Editor