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Ram Setu mess : More problems for UPA |
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B.I. Saini
There is no end to the problems which are coming in the way of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in its fourth year of power at the Centre. Even while no solution has been found to the differences with the Left parties whose support keeps the Manmohan Singh Government in power, on the India-US civilian nuclear deal, inept handling of the Ram Setu issue has landed the UPA in another mess. With all signals from the unresolved crisis over the nuclear issue indicating an early Lok Sabha poll, the Ram Setu fiasco has handed the saffornite forces, especially the BJP, a handle to sway the Hindu masses in their favour in the run up to the elections.
Significantly, two of the Ministers in the UPA, considered close to the ruling family in the Congress, are mainly responsi¬ble for the problems faced by the Government on the Ram Setu issue. Both Law Minister Hans Raj Bharadwaj and Culture Minister Ambika Soni and their Ministries are to a smaller or larger extent responsible for the offending paragraph in the affidavit submitted by Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam in the Supreme Court, which said that Lord Ram is merely a mythical figure and not a historical character, and there was no proof of the Ram Setu structure being built by him or at his behest. Obviously, the people who drafted the affidavit, were either completely ignorant of Hindu sentiments or were guilty of gross negligence of the worst category.
With public outrage over the affidavit, which held that the Ram Setu across the Palk Strait was not man made, but a natural formation, and the associated assertion that Lord Ram was just a mythical character, spilling over to the political stage and the streets, the people involved in the controversy are busy passing the buck. Law Minister Bharadwaj while admitting that an offi¬cial of his Ministry, Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subrama¬niam, had drafted the affidavit, has sought to put the blame on the Culture Ministry. Culture Minister Ambika Soni, on her part, has said that she was not responsible for the controversial affidavit. She has given a detailed sequence of the movement of papers relating to the affidavit from the Law Ministry to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI)/Culture Ministry and back to the ASG for filing in the court. She claimed that corrections made by her in the draft affidavit prepared by the ASG do not appear to have been carried out before it was filed in the Su¬preme Court. Ambika Soni, knowing the adverse fallout, has submitted all relevant papers to the Prime Minister’s office and to Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
According to Ambika Soni, her Ministry had made three major corrections in the affidavit draft. While two corrections or deletions were incorporated, the third relating to the controver¬sial portion questioning the existence of Lord Ram was retained in the affidavit filed in the apex court. The Culture Ministry has already suspended two senior ASI officials and has sought the ASI Director General’s explanation for what it now calls the “blunder.”
There is already questioning in the Congress itself of the role of the Ministers involved. It is reported that the Prime Minister and Congress president Sonia Gandhi called up Ambika Soni in Tokyo where she was on an official visit, on Sept. 13, to find out how the slip-up occurred. Sonia Gandhi, reports say, was very upset about the contents of the affidavit when she called up Ambika Soni.
Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh has said that in his view Ambika Soni should have owned up moral responsibility and stepped down over the issue. He said the moment it was found that the affidavit was wrongly drafted and had hurt the senti¬ments of the people, the leaders at the highest level in the Congress intervened to see that it was withdrawn. Jairam Ramesh said even though Ambika Soni could not be held responsible for the fiasco, she could have stepped down.
The inept handling of the issue pending in the Supreme Court has put a question mark over whether the Sethusamudaram ship channel project will finally see the light of the day after remaining in the limbo for over a century. The project was thought of in the 19th century as a way to shorten the shipping time between the western and eastern coasts of the country. It will shorten the journey by almost 36 hours resulting in a saving of hundreds of crores of rupees every year.
The Government has now sought three-months time from the Supreme Court to review the Sethusamudaram project after taking into account objections from various quarters. Hopefully, the review will not mean abandonment of the project which would bring immense benefits to the coastal states in the south of the coun¬try.
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