New Delhi: Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury on Wednesday said the country needs a thorough and a complete probe in the coal scam case to ensure that the guilty are punished.
Yechury said the CPI (M) has been demanding a complete and a thorough investigation into the entire scam on the basis of what the CAG report has said.
"We asked the Prime Minister to come and clarify in the house, which after great amount of pressure, he did. We were not satisfied with the statement, but that statement also said the government will complete cooperate in a proper full complete investigation. Now, what has been raised by the former Coal Secretary is actually part of such investigation. So, we want that investigation to be completed," Yechury told a news agency here.
"And since it`s happening under the supervision of the apex court of the country, I am sure the apex court has taken cognizance of the statement and they will do things accordingly. But what is required is a complete thorough probe," he added, while reacting to former Union Coal Secretary Prakash Chandra Parakh`s remarks that the Prime Minister should also be made an accused in the coal scam case.
To a poser on whether he saw any link in between the BJP and the Coal Secretary, Yechury said all attempts are being made to conceal the truth in this case.
"Whether it is on the 2G scam, whether it is on the coalgate scam, there has been and what we have been alleging from day one (that) there has been a classic match-fixing going on because the skeletons from the NDA cupboard will also start tumbling. And that is something that the BJP doesn`t want. So, in this whole case the whole idea is obfuscate to the entire truth," he said.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha today said the time has now come for the former coal secretary to speak up.
"He has spoken a little. He should come out clean now; make public statements of how files were disposed off at that time, how chits were received from the Congress Party headquarters in the PMO and how PMO transmitted those instructions to the Coal Ministry for allotment of coal blocks either to their favourites or to persons with whom they had struck deals," he said.
Parakh said earlier today that if the CBI considers that there is a conspiracy in this case, then the prime minister should be held equally responsible, as he was the final decision maker.
Parakh, who has been named in the latest chargesheet filed by the CBI along with industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla and his company, said there is absolutely nothing wrong in the decision.
IANS
