NEW DELHI, May 22
Amid reports of a Cabinet expansion after the exit of Union ministers P K Bansal and Ashwani Kumar, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said there are vacancies in his team but was non-committal about whether he will induct new members.
Asked if there is a possibility of a Cabinet expansion in the near future, Singh said, “Well, there are vacancies.”
He was talking to reporters at the fourth anniversary dinner of the UPA-II Government.
Singh did not elaborate on the issue.
Ever since Bansal and Kumar had to resign from the Cabinet in the wake of charges of wrongdoing, there have been murmurs that Singh will have to induct new ministers. Bansal had quit the Railway Ministry after he came under a cloud in a cash-for-transfer case involving his nephew.
Kumar had to resign from the Law Ministry after the CBI told the Supreme Court that he had vetted and made changes in the status report of the agency on the coal scam.
The strength of the Cabinet has shrunk since UPA ally DMK walked out of the ruling coalition. It had three Cabinet Ministers- A Raja, M Alagiri and Dayanidhi Maran.
Raja had resigned on the 2G Spectrum issue, Maran due to his alleged involvement in the Aircel-Maxis deal while Alagiri quit when DMK decided to walk out of the coalition on the grounds that India is not doing enough against Sri Lanka on the issue of atrocities against Tamilians in the neighbouring country.
Amidst allegations of corruption in allocation of telecom spectrum and coal mines, Singh promised to punish wrongdoers and said future allotment of scarce natural resources will happen only through auction.
UPA II Government has faced plethora of corruption charges in allocation of 2G spectrum when A Raja was the Telecom Minister and in allocation of coal blocks when Singh himself held the charge of the Coal Ministry.
“Allegations of impropriety are being investigated and cases of wrong doing will be punished,” Singh said in his address on the occasion of the UPA-II Government completing 4 years in office.
He said much has been made out of problems that arose with the way scarce resources such as spectrum and mining blocks were allocated in the past and there have been allegations of deliberate malfeasance.
“We have introduced more transparent systems for the future, i.E., auctions rather than relying on administrative allocations. The problems with past allocations are being dealt with, as they should be, under the Law,” he added.
Prime Minister said the root cause of the problem has been addressed and it will not arise in future.
“But we can claim credit that the root cause of the problem, which was the perceived non-transparency in the manner of allocation, has been addressed and these problems will not arise in the future,” he said.
Stating that improving the quality of governance was a major challenge, he said: “Both the Centre and the States have to act to deal with this problem. The UPA Government has done more in this area than any other Government.”
UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today came down heavily on main opposition party BJP for disrupting Parliament proceedings and preventing crucial legislations from being passed.
“I cannot hide my deep sense of disappointment over the manner in which Parliamentary proceedings have been disrupted by the principal opposition party,” Gandhi said at a function to mark four years of UPA-II rule.
“We are disappointed that we have not been able to get crucial legislations enacted entirely because of this obstructionist approach (of BJP).
Gandhi made a “fervent plea” to the NDA and other opposition parties to come together and clear the passage of the Food Security and the Land Acquisition bills, saying these were “non-partisan” issues affecting the lives of millions of people and this was not a question of Government versus the opposition.
“We need to be aware that there has been a calculated effort in some quarters to deliberately falsify and create innuendos to spread misinformation and untruths,” she said, adding that there was a need to be alert against them and to counter these campaigns.
Maintaining that the Prime Minister has been subjected to “unrelenting hostility and abuse” by the Opposition, Gandhi said “we respect and stand by him.”
To questions on the BJP’s attack on ruling UPA coalition and its four-year rule, the Prime Minister said “what else do you expect from a non-result oriented Opposition.”
He said “there is lot of motivated criticism. Sometimes there are attempts to derail us.”
Strongly defending the Government on the issue of corruption, the UPA Chairperson said graft was an issue that “agitates us all and we are uncompromising in our approach.”
“We have nothing to hide. We have nothing to feel defensive about,” Gandhi said, urging partymen to counter the opposition campaigns “which aimed to confuse, demoralise and thwart the Government’s functioning.”
Apart from the crucial legislations, the Government needed to “impart new energy in some key areas” like ‘aapka paisa, aapke haath’ initiative.
Among the UPA allies and its outside supporters present at the function were NCP chief Sharad Pawar, National Conference Farooq Abdullah and J and K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, RLD chief Ajit Singh, IUML leader E Ahamed, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan.
While SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav gave the function a miss, BSP was represented by senior leaders S C Mishra and Brajesh Pathak.
BSP leaders were seated at the same dinner table as Sonia Gandhi, Farooq Abdullah, Pawar and Rahul Gandhi.
Sonia Gandhi also dismissed reports of differences with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, asserting “we all stand by him”.
“There are no differences between the Prime Minister and me. There is collective leadership,” Gandhi said.
Gandhi said Singh has been facing unrelenting attack and abuse” from the Opposition, and expressed her firm support to him.
“The Prime Minister is carrying out his responsibility with great dignity in the face of unrelenting hostility and abuse from the Opposition. We respect him and we all stand by him,” she said, asserting that the UPA Government and the Congress party and its coalition colleagues have been working closely and unitedly all these years.
Gandhi said she did not need any reassurance about the Prime Minister. “I always had that reassurance,” she said.
Singh said Gandhi has been a great source of inspiration for him.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi also echoed these sentiments, saying “There is no difference between the party and the Government. There is no difference between Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister. This is creation of the Opposition.”
These remarks have come against the backdrop of Opposition charge that Singh and Sonia Gandhi are not on the same page on policy issues. Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj had said that whenever Singh announces a policy decision, the UPA Chairperson intervenes and gets it diluted to win applause. (PTI)
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