New Delhi, April 20 (Inditop.com) Shashi Tharoor and radiation exposure. While the former minister took centrestage again in the Lok Sabha Tuesday with a declaration of innocence over his alleged links to the Kochi IPL franchise, the discussion on radiation exposure in the capital put the government on the defensive in the Rajya Sabha.
Both houses of parliament were Tuesday preoccupied with issues quite at variance with each other.
A “deeply wounded” Tharoor was the focus of attention in the Lok Sabha for the third day.
As the Lok Sabha listened with rapt attention, Tharoor, speaking for the first time after his resignation Sunday as minister of state for external affairs, said his conscience was clear but he felt “deeply wounded”.
“I am deeply wounded by fanciful and malicious charges made against me and I have requested the prime minister to have these charges against me thoroughly investigated,” an emotional Tharoor said amid loud thumping of desks by his Congress party colleagues.
The former UN diplomat and bestselling novelist said: “My conscience is clear. I have done nothing improper or unethical, let alone illegal. Nonetheless, in view of the ongoing political controversy, I have no desire to be an embarrassment to the government and believe that my departure at this stage will allow the prime minister and his cabinet colleagues to focus on the great challenges facing our nation.”
Saying his resignation was in line with “the highest moral traditions of our democratic system”, the MP from Thiruvananthapuram said he also wanted to let parliament continue its legislative business stalled by opposition members demanding his sacking.
Tharoor, 54, was blamed for misusing office in favouring his Dubai-based friend Sunanda Pushkar to secure sweat equity in the Indian Premier League (IPL) Kochi franchise worth Rs.70 crore.
The mood in the Rajya Sabha was, however, different.
The government found itself on the defensive in the upper house as members across the spectrum, including from the Congress, questioned the lacunae that had resulted in seven people being exposed to radiation in a scrap market in Delhi’s Mayapuri area.
The government said adequate safeguards would be put in place to prevent its recurrence. It also admitted to the need for tightening registration procedures for scrap dealers and for a law to compensate victims in an incident of the kind that occurred in Mayapuri, leaving seven people battling for their lives.
Noting that the Cobalt-60 found in the scrap market “most likely came as scrap from abroad, from which country we do not know”, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Prithviraj Chavan said in reply to a calling attention motion raised by D. Raja of the Communist Party of India (CPI): “I wish to assure this house that elaborate equipment in the form of full container scanners is being put in place at all major ports (to ensure that radioactive scrap does not come into the country).”
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was present in the house, sat silently through the hour-long discussion.
Addressing the concerns of members on the compensation to be paid to victims of the Mayapuri radiation acciden, Chavan said: “At present there is no law for providing compensation for such accidents. We need to enact a law for this.”
Chavan’s reply, however, did not satisfy Raja and other members, most notably Najma Heptullah and S.S. Ahluwalia of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as also Jayanti Natarajan and P.J. Kurien of the Congress. They wondered how the Mayapuri incident had occurred if proper systems were in place and called for tightening procedures.
