The term 'Coalgate' referering to a multi-billion dollar scam exposed by the Controller and Auditor General of India. What the CAG Report said was that the Allocation of various Coal Blocks in Mineral Rich states of India including Odisha were done to Government favoured Companies at throw away prices thereby causing a big dent to the Govt. exchequer. CAG reported that had the Coal blocks been allocated to companies through the established process of competitive bidding, then the gain to the Government would have been massive. The loss accounted for as estimated by the CAG is upto 1.85 Lac Crores.
The Opposition, BJP blamed the centre for the scam and disrupted nearly the whole monsoon session of Parliament without letting much proceedings to go ahead demanding immediate resignation of the Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh. Various major Bills were stopped due to an uncooperative opposition in the parliament leading to absolute chaos in both the houses of Parliament followed by adjournment of the Houses. They were blaming that the Government used favoritism for personal gains and hence did not allocate the Coal blocks according to the policy formulated in 2004.
However Congress party at the Centre blames the state Governments in which most Coal Blocks are present and are mostly ruled over by the opposition. The Central Government says that the governments of major coal bearing states including Chattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal opposed the process of competitive bidding as they felt that it would increase the cost of coal, adversely impact value addition and development of industries in their areas and legally it would have been difficult for the centre to go ahead with bidding process without the consensus of these leading parties with diverse interests. Although the same is being denied by the Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen pattnaik was on the back foot because of his ministers earlier involvement in the Mining Scam. Both this were enough reasons for the Leading Opposition party of Odisha to take the streets against what they called a Corrupt and Incompetent BJD party and thus came out the thugs of Congress party for a Rally outside the Odisha Parliament. Incited by a hateful and angry speech by Jagdish Tytler and Odisha Pradesh Congress leader Niranjan Pattnaik, the mob gathered started pelting stones at the security officials and forcefully breaking cordons setup by the Bhubaneswar City Police. Police also reiterated by Lathicharging the crowd, and using water cannons and tear gas to disperse the crowd which lead to the mob becoming more violent leading to clashes between both parties. What followed was an ugly scene in Bhubaneswar with more than 100 people injured in the clashes including security personnel.
Although the Supreme Court of India has since ordered the Government to reply to it stating why the policy of competitive bidding was not followed and what steps have been proposed against the Companies who are involved in breach of their contracts, it still remains a mystery as to when and how will the Protests, the Violence, the Riots and the Bandh's which have virtually taken over the running of this country and are a regular sight all over India eventually end. Will these Protests and the Bandh's yield any result or are these just demonstrations of strength by Political parties in which blood and sweat of innocent civilians flows ... It is for the people to see that neither the Centre nor the States are in the right here and hence any protest the people take up might lead to a different political party but not a different state of affairs.
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