Ranchi: Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha on Friday said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should ask Union Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahai, who is embroiled in a controversy over allocation of a coal block in Jharkhand, "to resign along with him".
"The Prime Minister should first ask him (Sahai) to tender his resignation and then the PM should himself resign. According to rules coal minister has to approve allotments, and the coal ministry was with the PM," Sinha said at a press conference here.
Responding to a query on his party’s allegation against Sahai, Sinha went on to charge the Centre with a policy on coal block allocations that even helped them to `mine money` till the completion of mining of the allotted coal block.
BJP had accused Sahai of seeking the prime minister’s "personal intervention" for allocation of two coal blocks to a private company.
"The Congress has a policy to shift the blame on allies, leading to the resignations of A Raja, Dayanidhi Maran and Suresh Kalmadi... It has also shifted blame on Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel when prices skyrocketed and on Air India issue as the two ministers held agriculture and civil aviation ministries," alleged Sinha.
"But what about the prime minister, who had the Coal ministry, during the coal block allocations," he asked, demanding his resignation and saying the BJP would go to the people with this issues.
Claiming that the Congress had internal contradictions over coal block issue, Sinha said Finance Minister P Chidambaram said coal was not mined and still in the mother earth while the prime minister in an earlier statement had said coal block allocations had contributed to GDP growth.
"Having a coal block itself helps the beneficiary in the share market even if it is not mined, just as it was seen in the allocation of 2G Spectrum," he claimed.
PTI
