On Monday, BJP Rajya Sabha MP, Rakesh Sinha raised some very pertinent questions vis-a-vis the illegal coal mining activities in Meghalaya. He enquired about the action taken to curb the menace and the cumulative loss of revenue to the State exchequer. The Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines, Prahlad Joshi read out a standard reply evidently supplied to him by Government of Meghalaya. The replies refuted the allegation about coal being illegally mined and transported which every sensible person in Meghalaya knows is a blatant lie since hundreds of trucks carrying freshly mined coal ply on the Shillong-Guwahati road on a daily basis. They are more visible now because they traverse through Shillong city. Unfortunately Prof Rakesh Sinha’s questions were unstarred. Hence written replies were provided to all the questions raised. Also, unstarred questions leave no space for supplementary questions which are akin to prodding.
Parliamentary rules dictate that ministers have to be precise and accurate while answering questions because the information given through the answers is taken as authentic. Answers such as those given by Mr Joshi to Prof Rakesh Sinha’s questions are inaccurate and therefore misleading. It is not known if the learned professor has drawn the attention of the minister to these inaccuracies because if a Minister later finds that the information supplied is inaccurate or incorrect, he may make a statement in the House correcting the previous answer, in case it is a starred question or lay a statement on the Table of the House, in case of an unstarred question. When a Minister feels that he cannot supply authentic information to a question he should seek for more time and provide the answers after duly studying the matter. In the present case, the Union Minister represents the viewpoint of the Government. Hence going by his answer it would appear as if the BJP in Meghalaya is barking up the wrong tree as there is no apparent wrongdoing by the MDA government.
Since Rajya Sabha MP, Rakesh Sinha has just visited Meghalaya in January this year and travelled to distant villages and also met with a cross section of people, including BJP workers, it is presumed that he would be better briefed about the situation here than the Union Minister. The MP would also have been informed that the NPP which leads the coalition government here has been daring the BJP MLAs to leave the alliance because the Party has been attacking the Government on the GHADC scam among others. After the Union Minister has virtually given a clean chit to the Meghalaya Government on the issue of coal mining, the NPP-led coalition is now on a safe wicket even while the Meghalaya BJP is left to eat humble pie. Such are the perils of the coalition ‘adharma.’