Sushma clears air

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj cleared the air over the perceived climbdown of the party’s demand for the Prime Minister’s resignation on the coal scam, at the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting held here on Tuesday. The change in the stand had led to confusion in the party, with many leaders alleging that “they were kept in the dark” and that “the party top brass unilaterally decided to backtrack on the demand for PM’s resignation”.

“I am aware that some confusion prevails in the party over our latest stand vis-a-vis our two demands for resumption of a debate in Parliament. This all started with my conversation with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, who wanted to know if there was a way out of the Parliament logjam. Her’s was a limited question; mine was a limited answer. We have not backtracked on the demand for PM’s resignation at all,” an MP quoted her as saying at the Parliamentary Party meet. “Our party is planning to take the issue to the people and the demand (for PM’s resignation) would very much be put forth there,” she told the MPs.

At a press conference in Mumbai on Sunday, Sushma had placed two demands to end the Parliament logjam -- the cancellation of all the 142 coal blocks and an independent and fair investigation into the whole episode.

L K Advani, Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad and M Venkaiah Naidu also spoke on issues related to ‘coalgate’ at the meeting.

‘Mota mal’

Later, speaking at a workers’ conference here, Swaraj launched a scathing attack on the Congress for the scam, reiterating the charge that the party had made a “mota maal” (fat sum) in the scam. “Coal block has been allocated to Naveen Jindal. People like Subodh Kant Sahay and Moti Lal Vora had given their recommendation to private parties,” she said. She also alleged that the screening committee set by the government to allocate these blocks had formed joint ventures (JVs) on its own and claimed that huge sum of money was exchanged during the process