Congress leader Rashid Alvi on Wednesday criticized the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) for their repeated allegations against Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, and said the opposition party's recurring disrespectful statements against the leader of the country is highly condemnable.
"The country's Prime Minister is the country's respect. No one can put a rupee's worth of corruption allegation against Dr. Manmohan Singh. The Bharatiya Janata Party repeatedly plays with the Prime Minister's respect. Even if I say that they play with the nation's respect, I will not be wrong," Alvi said.
"I condemn these kind of statements. Not only should Ravi Shankar Prasad take his statement back, but he should also apologize to the Prime Minister and the country. The law is doing its work, the CBI is doing its work and it is very unfortunate that these statements are being made," he added.
Earlier today, BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad accused Dr. Manmohan Singh of being directly involved in the Coal Scam, and further alleged that he 'hid' facts during his statement to the Houses of Parliament on Tuesday.
"Deeply hurt that the Prime Minister tried to hide a lot of facts in his Parliamentary speech. He can't be economical with truth," Prasad said.
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"Two people certainly need to be investigated, those who made allotment and those who are the beneficiary," he said.
"If the interrogation (on Dr. Manmohan Singh) is not being facilitated, it's unfortunate," he added.
Similar accusations were raised by BJP leader Balbir Punj, who said the Prime Minister is 'running away' from the investigation.
"Of all the scams of the UPA-2 Government, the biggest was the Coal Scam and it is also very, very important for the simple reason that when the scam took place, the Coal Minister in this Government happened to be the Prime Minister himself. As a result, no investigation in this case can be complete without a proper interrogation of the Prime Minister. But the Prime Minister seems to be running away from all investigations," Punj said.
"We saw his (Dr. Manmohan Singh's) conduct in Rajya Sabha yesterday. He made a blank statement-a wishy-washy statement in both Houses. After that, rather than taking questions and queries, he ran away," he added.
On Tuesday, the Prime Minister made a statement in the Rajya Sabha regarding the concerns raised over the missing files pertaining to the Coal Scam, and said the Centre would ensure that all files would be located and given to the CBI to proceed with investigation in the case.
"If the records in question are indeed found missing, the government will carry out a thorough investigation and ensure that the guilty is booked," Dr. Singh told the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, while making a statement on the issue of missing files relating to allocation of coal blocks.
The BJP has held the Prime Minister responsible and demanded his resignation for what has been estimated as loss of Rs 1.86 lakh crores to the national exchequer by the CAG in coal blocks allocation.
The CAG report does not indict the Prime Minister or his office, but the BJP is emphasizing that the Prime Minister held direct charge of the Coal Ministry for the years under scrutiny.
