Chandigarh: Hitting out at BJP for stalling Parliament proceedings, Congress today alleged it deliberately ran away from the debate to save its three Chief Ministers who had opposed competitive bidding for allocation of coal mines.
"There is a standard parliamentary procedure to discuss CAG reports. BJP was not accepting anything and only trying to cover up. Opposition parties usually force debate on various contentious issues, but in this case BJP simply ran away," Union Minister Rajiv Shukla told reporters here.
The Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs said the standard procedure is that the CAG report is discussed in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament and it is the PAC`s report that is discussed in the House.
"As BJP was raising the issue and stalling Parliament, the government was ready for debating the CAG report straightway in the House. Since, BJP knew that it had so many skeletons in its cupboard as its Chief Ministers had themselves opposed the competitive bidding, it avoided the debate," he said.
Maintaining that the UPA government had only continued the policy of the BJP-led NDA, he asserted, it was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who had initiated the policy of competitive bidding in coal allocation which was objected to by several BJP and other Chief Ministers.
"Just because BJP did not want its own Chief Ministers to be exposed, it stalled the functioning of Parliament even though other Opposition parties like the Left and the Samajwadi Party wanted a debate," he said.
He said the BJP had no faith in Parliament hence it sabotaged the proceedings.
"In the process the BJP caused Rs 111 crore loss to national exchequer," the Congress leader said.
He said the Congress will take on BJP at the grassroots level across the country "to expose all its lies".
PTI
