BJP leverages on Sahay's letter to attack Manmohan

The BJP on Saturday stepped up its attack on the Prime Minister charging that he as coal minister was “facilitating” allocation of coal blocks to relatives of his Cabinet colleagues, referring to an allotment to a Union minister’s brother linked company.

“The Prime Minister always maintains a conspicuous silence and colossal indifference. It is now evident that Union ministers were lobbying for their kith and kin and the Prime Minister as the coal minister was facilitating that,” BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said. 

The Lok Sabha deputy leader of opposition was hinting at the controversy surrounding over Subodh Kant Sahai, the then Minister of State for Food Processing, who had lobbied for allocation of two blocks to SKS Ispat in which his brother was a director.

Sahai, who is now minister for tourism, in 2008 wrote to the Prime Minister’s Office and within a day the communication was forwarded to the coal secretary for taking appropriate action. “Ispat got the blocks,” said the BJP.  A day after the Prime Minister ridiculed the Opposition demand for his resignation, the BJP also said that the party had the right to seek, political, Constitutional and moral accountability of Manmohan Singh in the coalgate scam.

“The right to ask questions and seek political, Constitutional and moral accountability is indeed the constitutional and parliamentary obligation of the Opposition. And Mr Prime Minister this is not ‘tu-tu main main,’ ” Prasad said.

Singh was forced to table his statement as he was not allowed to speak on coal block allocation scam in Parliament. On his return from Tehran, Singh had said that he “cannot get into a slanging match — ‘tu-tu main main’ —with the opposition” as he had to maintain the dignity of his office.