New Delhi: The Prime Minister was inaudible in Parliament as he explained his government's stand on the coal allocation controversy today. The BJP shouted loudly, demanding his resignation, extending the strategy that it adopted all of last week to paralyse Parliament. The Prime Minister's Office used twitter to share his statement.
"I wish to say that any allegations of impropriety are without basis and unsupported by the facts,'" he had said inside Parliament, amid a cacophony of protests.
Outside, he made a brief statement, describing as "disputable" the report of the national auditor that has pivoted a huge new political storm. Using the relative calm outside the House, the PM added, "I appeal to the opposition to come back to the House and debate the issue."
The BJP had warned this morning that it would not cooperate with the PM's attempt to rebut the charges that on his watch as Coal Minister, private firms between 2004 and 2009 benefitted by upto 1.86 lakh crores because coal fields were sold to them at under-valued prices, a conclusion reached by the national auditor (CAG) in a report presented earlier this month. "As the minister in charge, I take full responsibility for the decisions of the ministry. I wish to say that any allegations of impropriety are without basis and unsupported by the facts," the PM's statement declares.
Dr Manmohan Singh leaves for an official visit to Iran tomorrow.
This morning, the BJP's allies said they don't agree with its strategy of insisting on the PM's resignation before he speaks on "Coal-gate."
Akali Dal leader Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa said today that "Parliament must be allowed to function." Nitish Kumar's JD(U), another important ally, has also told the BJP that it would like to hear what the PM has to say.
The report of the Comptroller and Auditor Genreal (CAG) did not indict the Prime Minister but said that the government missed opportunities to introduce an auction to assign coal blocks to companies. The PM was Coal Minister for three of the years studied by the auditor. The CAG report says that a screening committee that included representatives of state governments did not have transparent records of how allottees were chosen.
"There were then no allegations of impropriety in the functioning of the Committee," the PM's statement shares. As expected, he also pointed out that many state governments led by the BJP objected to an auction for mines when the Centre mooted a proposal for bidding in 2005.
Echoing the defense offered by several ministers last week, the PM said that a hungry economy and surging industry needed coal quickly and that legislative changes required to amend the existing laws and guidelines to provide for an auction would have hurt the country's needs. So, at a meeting in July 25, he said, the consensus was "to continue with the allocation of coal blocks through the extant Screening Committee procedure till the new competitive bidding procedure became operational. This was a collective decision of the centre and the state governments concerned."
The BJP will now have to decide whether it should participate and enable a debate on the controversy.
Calling the government "arrogant and despotic", senior party leader and Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley wrote on his party's website yesterday that, "The arbitrary and discretionary allocation of 142 coal blocks is the latest albatross round the neck of the UPA Government. The arrogant and despotic government did not realise when the allocations were made that it would be held accountable for each of these coal block allocations."
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