)
BJP today demanded Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's resignation in the wake of former Coal Secretary P C Parakh's charge that he is also responsible for the coal block allocations as the ministry was under his charge and all decisions were taken with his consent.
"Today a surprising development has taken place where in a bizarre instance an FIR has been lodged against the officer who suggested that the auction route should be adopted in coal block allocations and even prepared a Cabinet note on it," BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said.
The BJP MP claimed that instead of accepting the proposal- given by Parakh in 2004- the Manmohan Singh government had deliberately kept the Cabinet note in cold storage so as to enable it to allot coal blocks arbitrarily.
BJP alleged Congress was working with the intention of committing a scam and hence did not accept the suggestion for competitive bidding.
Parakh, who was known as the whistleblower of the coal scam, has been named in the scam. He retorted by saying all decisions on the allocations were taken with the PM's consent.
The main opposition further charged the Coal portfolio was with Manmohan Singh as people usually do not ask questions about a ministry being handled by the Prime Minister himself.
"Right from day one, BJP has been demanding the Prime Minister's resignation as he was the then Coal Minister under whose signature and seal the monumental scam happened.... BJP reiterates its demand for his immediate resignation because the buck stops with him," Javadekar said.
BJP sought to know why Minister of State for Coal from 2006 to 2009, Dasari Narayan Rao, who did not take cognisance of Parakh's note and against whom a quid pro quo for favours done has come to light, was not even questioned by CBI.
BJP alleged CBI has not even gone near the real people behind the coal scam. "The Supreme Court had called CBI a caged parrot. In Railgate, it had made the one who committed the scam a witness," Javadekar said.
