New Delhi, Feb 19: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) today urged the Prime Minister to order a thorough CBI inquiry into the sale and re-sale of centaur hotel Mumbai, causing a Rs 146 crore loss to the exchequer, to uphold probity in public life and the larger national interest. ''We hope that Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee will respond urgently, besides Mr Shourie will not mind because in the wake of our earlier charges of irregularities in the use of PSU assets he had brushed us off saying that the matter be raised only when there is a check audit by CAG which substantiate our charges in the Parliament,'' CPI(M) Rajya Sabha leader Nilopat Basu told reporters here.
The Congress also accused the BJP led government of blatantly misusing the funds of PSUs for private and political ends and thereby destroying the profit making corporations.
''The CAG report has confirmed that Rs 145 crore of revenue to public exchequer has been squandared away through the deal in the sale of government owned centaur hotel, Mumbai (of hotel corporation of India) to Batra Hospitality on April 18, 2002,'' said Mr Basu in a letter to Mr Vajpayee whom the former hailed as an ''upright man''.

The CPI(M) leader said the disinvestment minister had given an ''angry and uncharacteristic reaction'' and he used ''intemperate and completely unacceptable'' language on the methodology adopted by the CAG on the same evening.
It said in the absence of such a procedure, one could not but conclude that it was a 'distress sale' of a PSU asset to a 'pre decided bidder'. ''This is also borne out by the fact that within three months the Batra Hospitality Pvt Ltd had re-sold the property to an airlines company with a premium of Rs 35 crore.
Bureau Report