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Parliament adjourned till Wednesday over coal allotments

Both houses of parliament were repeatedly disrupted and finally adjourned till Wednesday.

New Delhi: Both houses of parliament were repeatedly disrupted and finally adjourned till Wednesday as the opposition refused to buy Prime Minister Manmohan Singh`s assurance that the government had nothing to hide on the issue of coal block-allocations.
The BJP raised the demand for a debate on the missing files related to allocation of coal blocks and wanted the prime minister to intervene as he is scheduled to leave for Russia Wednesday for the G-20 summit. In his statement, made in both houses, Manmohan Singh insisted that his government has nothing to hide vis-a-vis suspected irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks and it was wrong to assume that it was "hiding something". Manmohan Singh said it would be premature to conclude that official papers sought by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the coal blocks were indeed missing. He informed both the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha that the vast majority of the papers had already been handed over to the CBI and that there was nothing "fishy" as a section of members feared. "Let me assure this august house that the government has nothing to hide," he said, reading out a prepared statement. The opposition was not satisfied with the statement and disrupted both houses seeking clarifications from the prime minister. Amid din, both houses were adjourned for the day by the respective presiding officers. IANS