NEW DELHI, May 10: Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and Law Minister Ashwani Kumar were tonight forced to resign by the Congress and the Prime Minister as the Government’s image continued to take a severe battering over allegations of corruption and interference with graft probe.
On a day of dramatic developments, Congress President Sonia Gandhi met Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and it was decided that both should be asked to put in their papers to contain any further damage to the Government that has already been plagued by a series of scandals.
“Yes, I have resigned,” said 64-year-old Bansal emerging from a meeting with the Prime Minister, a week after his nephew was arrested for allegedly accepting Rs 90 lakh from a Railway Board member for a promise of promotion.
Soon after Bansal, Law Minister Ashwani Kumar, who is under attack over vetting of CBI report in the probe into coal block allocation scam, also met the Prime Minister and submitted his resignation.
PMO spokesman said their resignations are being forwarded to President Pranab Mukherjee.
In his resignation letter, Bansal maintained that he was not aware that his nephew Vijay Singla was in contact with Railway Board Member Mahesh Kumar but he still thought it proper to step down.
He said he looks forward to an expeditious investigation into the allegations.
Ashwani Kumar, in his resignation letter, said he was resigning to put an end to “unnecessary controversy” and “public perception of any wrongdoing”.
He maintained that the Supreme Court had not passed any strictures against him.
The government is expected to come out with a detailed statement on the issue tomorrow.
The Congress, which initially decided to weather the storm over Bansal and Kumar, acted to contain any further damage as more and more damning reports surfaced.
Gandhi and Singh took the decision as there was growing unease in the party that the continuance of the two ministers was eroding the credibility of the Government, which has been battling scams and controversies for the last three years.
The Government, which suffered a severe blow when the Railway Board scam surfaced, was further embarrassed with more media reports emerging about kin of Bansal benefiting from a public sector bank by way of loans when he was Minister of State of Finance.
A clear hint about action against Bansal and Kumar came earlier in the day when Congress spokesman Bhakt Charan Das said the party will not spare anybody “mired” in corruption or manipulation.
The exit of Bansal and Kumar is expected to trigger a reshuffle in the Council of Ministers over which the Congress President and the Prime Minister will meet on Sunday. The reshuffle is expected next week.
Meanwhile, there were unconfirmed reports from Bangalore that Union Labour Minister Mallikarjun Kharge, who lost out in race for Chief Ministership in Karnataka, told his supporters not to be disheartened because he may be given the Railway portfolio.
Meanwhile, hawala route was used for payment of bribe money in the Railway graft scandal, a preliminary probe by CBI showed, as the agency asked senior Railway officials to join its investigations.
As the scandal put Railway Minister P K Bansal in the dock after his nephew Vijay Singla was among those arrested in the alleged Rs 10 crore Railway bribery scandal, the agency shortlisted 500 phone calls for scrutiny from out of the 1,000 intercepted calls mainly among the four arrested accused.
CBI sources said that over 1,000 phone calls were intercepted during the two-month long surveillance on arrested member of Railway Board Mahesh Kumar and Singla. CBI has so far arrested eight acccused in the case.
The sources said these calls were among four key players in the scandal—Kumar, Singla and middlemen Manjunath and Sandeep Goyal.
The location of Singla during surveillance of CBI showed his frequent presence at Railway Minister’s residence and Rail Bhawan, the sources claimed.
The sources said one important aspect which is under probe is how the bribe money was brought to Chandigarh from Bangalore.
According to preliminary investigation, the initial bribe money was not physically brought from Bangalore but through Hawala route and Manjunath allegedly used his contacts in Delhi to manage money and got it delivered to Singla in Chandigarh, they said.
The agency alleged that a part payment of Rs 90 lakh was delivered to Singla after which it carried out searches at their premises and recovered the bribe amount.
Kumar was in between elevated from GM (West) to Member (Staff) in Railway Board, a post in which he was not very apparently interested. He then allegedly asked Goyal to help him retain the additional charge of GM (West) for which the middleman demanded Rs two crore as immediate payment.
The sources said a discussion on the transfer of the Railway Board member in specific terms could not be traced so far in the intercepts of direct phone calls between Singla and Kumar.
However, there were calls in which Singla is purported to be assuring Kumar that the work would be done. Kumar was allegedly assured that he will get the lucrative post of Member (Electrical) in exchange for “pecuniary gratification.”
BJP today said the resignation of Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal is a step taken “too late” and charged the Government with “wasting” the precious time of Parliament by not agreeing to its demand.
The opposition party hoped that the probe into the railway bribery scam will now go in the right direction and truth will come out.
“This is a step taken too late. Had the Government agreed to the BJP demand earlier, they could have saved precious time of Parliament,” BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain told reporters.
He said the resignation has been delayed “deliberately” and claimed that the minister had no right to stay in his position.
“BJP leader Sushma Swaraj had made the demand that if the two ministers (Law Minister Ashwani Kumar and Bansal) resign, Parliament can function normally. They have wasted the precious time of Parliament by not agreeing to our demand. The BJP now expects that the probe into the railway scam will go in the right direction,” Hussain said.
Noting that the resignation has came much late, BJP Vice President Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said, “the kingdom of loot is now on fire” and “neither the looters nor their protectors will be saved”.
He said the anger of people has now been converted into hatred and they will teach a lesson to the “corrupt” in the coming elections. He hoped that instead of putting an abrupt end to the Parliament session, Government should have put an end to corruption and those involved in it.
Hussain said the party will not remain silent and will keep raising the issue of railway bribery as well as that of the Law Minister’s alleged interference in CBI functioning. (PTI)
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