TR Baalu was booted out of the Cabinet and the Congress in a rare case of standing up to DMK stood firm in its decision to keep Baalu out of Cabinet.
And this epitome of Honesty finds a place in Joint Parliamentary Committee!
He has the cheek to disrupt the Director of CBI not to mention the name of Dayanidhi Maran relating to 2 G Scam,while the Director was deposing in the JPC.
How come Baalu is in JPC?
Story:
Baalu has also trailed clouds of controversy, including a 2008 attempt to procure gas for two companies owned by his two wives and two sons. When the issue was raised in Parliament, his response was: “What is wrong with it?”
These companies, desiring gas at a concession, had been denied it by GAIL (India) Ltd. But the public sector utility had to finally yield. Later, in Parliament, Baalu said: “I just put in a word…after the request of employees and shareholders of the two loss-making units.”…
The constraints of coalition politics—Baalu’s party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, or DMK, had held 15 crucial Lok Sabha seats—seemed to have forced the Congress to defend Baalu. “Every day we get requests from people,” said Murli Deora, Union petroleum minister. “If somebody tells me that this is a question of 2,000 people losing their jobs, I will call people, I will ask my officers to help. We are here to help, not harass people… There is no nepotism involved.”
Then, there is Baalu’s rigid stance on the Sethusamudram project, which involves dredging a canal through a chain of coral islets between India and Sri Lanka. Baalu claimed that the canal would shorten shipping routes and boost commerce; a Mint investigation concluded that the Rs2,600 crore-project would, in fact, benefit no one…
http://www.livemint.com/UserControls/2009/05/08212631/TR-Baalu–Clouded-by-controve.html
In all government projects, some money changes hands. But in some of the cases of projects awarded recently by the NHAI, there seems to be fairly blatant rigging and collusion,” says the head of a road project of a Mumbai-based construction firm on the condition of anonymity. Planning Commission officials say that the projects are being increasingly structured to make them lucrative for the winning bidder — and then they are being rigged to make sure that a handful of specific bidders bag them. CBI sources say that both the ministry and the highway authority have been uncooperative, and have stonewalled their enquiries…
http://www.businessworld.in/bw/2010_12_18_Road_Robbery.html?storyInSinglePage=true
Congress has reservations about giving the 68 year old leader ministries in the new government. He was seen as many as a reason for the slowdown in the highway programme, and for turning the NHAI into a contracting agency.
The big low point for Baalu was when truckers went on strike twice within six months in July 2008 and January 2009.
Baalu courted controversy when he admitted that he had sought gas allocation for a company owned by his son, in response to an allegation made by AIADMK.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/ministers-of-scam-why-pm-doesnt-want-raja-baalu/93126-37.html
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