This is not political vendetta, says BJP

Union Minister Hansraj Ahir, who was a whistleblower in coalgate, on Wednesday took a stand different from the BJP as he said he was “happy” on former prime minister Manmohan Singh getting summons from a court to appear as an accused in one of coal block allocation irregularities case.

The BJP’s reaction, interestingly, was muted with a senior Union minister saying that it was a court decision and not “an act of vendetta” which Prime Minister Narendra Modi, contrary to previous UPA regime, has vowed not to pursue for political gains.

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, who had teamed up with Ahir in exposing coalgate, was kind in commenting against Singh courting trouble. Javadekar was of the view that Congress leader Singh was paying for the “sins”of his party.

Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizer Ahir criticised the Congress for “pointing fingers” as he insisted that the summons were issued by the CBI court hearing coal scam cases.

“Nation’s property should go to the nation, I am very happy this inquiry is happening,” Ahir stressed while arguing that everyone is equal before the law.

“But this is the law of the land and I am happy it is applied to everyone,” the minister explained. The BJP MP from Chandarpur in Maharashtra, however, felt that this was “unfortunate for the nation” that a former prime minister has been summoned.

A senior NDA minister said Singh is personally not corrupt and as former coal minister he had infact wanted to change the policy to opt for auction route for coal block allocation.

On a question that some BJP chief ministers had also written letters influencing allotment process, a central minister said that every government gets requests but ultimately the onus is on the authorities to remove wheat from chaff.