When push comes to shove, the Congress party does it best: it pushes and shoves Manmohan Singh further away from the glare and ire. The party’s belligerence is best seen when defending the prime minister – perhaps more so than even witnessed while batting for the Gandhi family.

There’s a reason for that, of course: while the latter can defend themselves, the plain and simple truth is, Manmohan Singh cannot. It’s also a rude fact to digest – a bitter pill that has to be gulped down with effort, and loads of water and burps – the man who is supposed to be leading you cannot stand up and defend himself or his (your?) government, let alone defend, bat for – or worse still – fight for you.

It has, thus, become a bit of a routine for India this monsoon: as the rain keeps pounding away in the national capital, parliament keeps throwing up the ruckus and the adjournments. A script that goes along the dotted lines on Thursday (August 22) as well: the opposition demands a statement from Singh on the missing files relating to the coal blocks allocation scam, or Coalgate, a belligerent Congress saying, well, nothing doing.

"The PM is not a custodian of files. He does not sit in store rooms, does not need to reply. The coal minister (Sriprakash Jaiswal) will reply," parliamentary affairs minister Kamal Nath told the media outside the house. "If the BJP wants to disrupt, there are many excuses; the weather could also be one."

To take a good argument to its logical end, no, the PM does not sit in storerooms. Does Jaiswal sit there? Is he the custodian of files? Neither Kamal Nath’s remark nor these two questions are to be taken literally, of course. But there’s merit in what Nath says: if Manmohan Singh isn’t the custodian of the ministry with jurisdiction over the mystery of the missing files, he need not answer any question.

But as opposition leaders, including the BJP’s Arun Jaitley and the CPM’s Sitaram Yechury, among others, point out, if the question at hand is about files between 2006 and ’09, at a time Manmohan Singh held the coal portfolio, he should be deemed the coal minister. And Singh, not Jaiswal, should reply – not necessarily as the prime minister but as the then coal minister.

Second, the PM should answer because he has built a political career out of probity in public life. He is the prime minister, despite not being a people’s representative, because the UPA peddled that honesty and integrity line and ‘made’ him the PM. The least he can do now, as a way to pay back to a curious nation, is answer questions about how files went missing in a ministry relating to a period when he held charge.

Third, if Singh can find the time to give away Rajiv Gandhi sadbhavna awards, and afford time to make ostensible jibes at fellow politicians ("We have to oppose communal forces all the time, at all levels, whether it is daily life or elections," he said while handing over the award to sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan), he can just as well answer queries about files missing in a case that is alleged to have cost the exchequer nearly Rs 1.8 lakh crore. The dignity of the PM’s office is not served by not making statements in parliament, even out of turn, as the Congress party claims, and then going out and taking potshots at others.
 
PS: Just before noon, the government agreed that Manmohan Singh “may intervene” if “required”. That intervention from the government – about the PM’s possible intervention – should have come earlier. It would have saved precious parliament time. Congress spokespersons like Renuka Chowdhury, who cry themselves hoarse on TV channels blaming the opposition for disrupting parliament and wasting people’s money and time, should remember running parliament is as much the government’s responsibility as it is the opposition’s.

In fact, the administrators have a bigger role because by virtue of their visiting cards, the opposition MPs’ duty is to oppose any discrepancy on the government’s side. It is the ruling team’s duty to clear the glitches and discrepancies.