BJP says it has no role in Manmohan's questioning

Dismissing Congress charges of vindictive politics, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has asserted that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had no role to play in the questioning of former prime minister Manmohan Singh in the coal block allocation scam.

The party has said that it wants Singh, who was coal minister at the time the scam was brewing during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime, to “come out with the truth” and expose offenders to “save the county”.

A local court had taken exception to a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) closure report on the scandal around the allocation of the Talabira II coal block to Hindalco. Subsequently, investigators questioned Singh at his residence two days ago on the court’s directive as the case would come up for hearing on January 27.On the Congress’s reactions to Singh’s questioning, Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said: “The government has no role at all. The Congress is speaking in two voices. While one person says (the examination) is vindictive, another says it is part of the legal process.”

Naidu said that the charges against Singh when he was coal minister were yet to be clarified.

“They (Congress leaders) should sit down and decide on what to speak...It is the hobby of the Congress to go into a misinformation campaign without knowing what they are talking about,” the Union minister said. BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao said the UPA used agencies to harass rivals, unlike the NDA government, which keeps an arm’s length from all criminal investigations.