Tough questions were put to Law Minister Ashwani Kumar as his party asked how it should defend his role in the raging controversy centred around his changing a CBI report on its investigation on "Coal-Gate."
On Wednesday, the minister was in the hot seat at the Congress War Room, the office on Gurudwara Rakabganj Road, where meetings are usually held to finalise strategies on matters like elections.
The minister allegedly told spokespersons who often represent the party in debate on news channels that he has done "nothing wrong."
Here are five points of discussion that emerged as the minister talked to an audience that included leaders like Jairam Ramesh, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Manish Tewari, and Janardan Dwivedi:
Here are the five points of discussion:
The Law Minister said that he had not called the CBI director Ranjit Sinha to his office on March 5. He said the meeting was called by Attorney General GE Vahanvati, and that the minister's only interest was in resolving a dispute between Mr Vahanvati and Additional Solicitor General Harin Raval about the format of the report. It was at this meeting that the minister made changes to the CBI report. (Read: Who is Ashwani Kumar?)
The minister said that so far, the Supreme Court has not indicted him for asking to see the report. "We have not done anything wrong. We should clarify the situation," Mr Kumar was quoted as saying.
The minister also reportedly said that he welcomes the Supreme Court's decision to ask for the draft report which reflects the changes he sought for. The CBI filed a final report with the judges three days later. The court has asked for copies of both. Mr Kumar told his party that this examination would prove that he had not made substantial changes.
Some senior ministers felt that Mr Kumar should issue a formal statement in parliament or outside. They said unless he shares his version, party spokespersons cannot defend him. But the party finally decided that no clarification should be made till after the next Supreme Court hearing on Monday.
Some leaders also stressed that "if nothing wrong had been done," as claimed by Mr Kumar, a clarification should have been made to that effect much earlier, because in its absence, the perception of guilt has scaled up.
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