NEW DELHI: A one-line entry in BJP MP Hansraj Ahir ’s bio-data on the Lok Sabha website that lists “environmental protection” as his special interest is hardly a clue to the fact that he is indeed the man who set the ball rolling in the coal block allocation case, which concluded today with the Supreme Court cancelling all but four of the allotments.Ahir, who represents Chandrapur in Maharashtra, is the person who raised the alarm over the allocation of coal blocks for free, first with the parliamentary committee on coal and steel and later with the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).“I come from Maharashtra, where coal reserves are among the lowest, only 3.4% of all coal reserves. These were being allocated. Not just that, they were being allocated for free and without auction,” he said.The environmental havoc caused by mining had made him very cautious about the allocation procedures. From 2004 till about 2006, he kept raising the matter, writing frequently to the Prime Minister, the chief vigilance commissioner and even the Comptroller and Auditor General ( CAG ) of India. Many in his party doubted whether his efforts would amount to much.In 2007, lawyer Sudiep Shrivastava moved the first application on the issue under the Right to Information Act, demanding details of how and to whom coal blocks had been allotted and the state of their productivity. For six months, nothing happened.“Then an MP, probably from the Left, raised a question in Parliament on the same lines. We both got the same answers, at the same time,” says Shrivastava, who credits Ahir for being diligent with his pursuit of an audit and vigilance enquiry. Information from the response to the RTI query formed the basis for a lot of the legal work on the issue.After Nitin Gadkari took over as BJP chief in 2009, current information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar was asked to help Ahir press his case for an examination of the allocations. The party was finally coming around to the fact that the coal allocation issue could be a potential time bomb for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.The added heft to the demand finally led to an audit by the CAG as well as an adverse CVC report. “In 2010, when the CAG came out with its figures of loss to the exchequer, the UPA government lost an opportunity. They should have formed a committee, cancelled the coal blocks and re-allocated them through new norms. Instead, the Supreme Court had to step in,” Ahir told ET.He admits to a sense of closure with regard to the coal block allocation issue. “I’m just happy that what belongs to the country has reverted and is not being given away for free,” the four-time MP said.