UPA should respect CAG, says Joshi

Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi on Sunday demanded that the UPA government should cancel allotment of coal blocks before expecting the BJP to join Parliament.

Joshi was here for the launch of a book written by BJP MLC Hriday Narain Dixit. “The CAG report has just confirmed our apprehensions about the large-scale swindling of money in the coal allotments,“ said Joshi. He said it was improper to criticise the CAG and the language of Congress leaders, like Digvijay Singh, indicated the party’s intentions to demolish the constitutional body. “The statements of the Prime Minister and leaders of the Congress, who have raised strong doubts on the findings of the CAG, are totally unjustified,” he added.

“In 1962, a Congress MP had criticised the CAG in the same way.

The then Speaker had reprimanded the MP and told him to tender his apology,” he said adding that “today there is no one to check such uncalled-for utterances”.

He observed that it was strange that when the UPA government itself recommended and agreed for the bidding of the coal blocks, why it kept the same file pending for over eight years.