Cong rules out resignation of Bansal, Ashwani Kumar
Monday, 06/05/2013
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20130506/main2.htm
New Delhi : Firmly backing Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and Law Minister Ashwani Kumar, the Congress on Sunday ruled out the possibility of their resignations. While Bansal is facing heat after his nephew was arrested in a bribery case, Ashwani Kumar is in the eye of a storm over the coalgate controversy.
“No decision will be taken until investigations conclude. Let the investigation fructify. Let’s not prejudge,” Union Minister Manish Tewari told mediapersons this evening after the conclusion of the Congress core group meeting, the second such exercise in two days, amid reports of a major relief in the form of a Chinese pullback of troops in the Ladakh region.
Interestingly, Defence Minister AK Antony met Congress president Sonia Gandhi ahead of the scheduled core group meeting, a day after he briefed President Pranab Mukherjee on the Chinese incursions.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Tewari sought to underscore that the Central Bureau of Investigation was already probing the Railway Board bribery case in which Bansal’s nephew Vijay Singla is in the custody of the premier investigation agency and no decision would be taken till it was complete.
While a critical analysis of the government’s assertion could lead to an interpretation that a final rejection has not been made, but given the fact that the Opposition, including the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Left, is demanding the removal of the two ministers on the eve of the last week of the Parliament session, its import is not lost. Interestingly, top sources in the Congress confirmed to The Tribune that Bansal did not offer to quit as was being speculated.
On the demand that Law Minister Ashwani Kumar should resign on the controversy of having perused a CBI report on the coal blocks allocation report that the agency was not supposed to share with the executive, Tewari maintained since the matter was sub-judice, the government would tell the court if it had anything to say on it.
