The BJP on Wednesday demanded Prime Minister Manmoham Singh’s resignation with immediate effect. “Elections must be held any way now so that the country is saved from the gigantic loot that the UPA Government has been indulging in,” senior BJP leader and party spokesman Chandan Mitra told media persons in Bhubaneswar.
Mitra exuded confidence that the people of India would get an opportunity to elect a new Government under the BJP which can restore a corruption-free, inflation- free and development-oriented Government as the NDA under former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had given to this country between 1998 and 2004.
Mitra demanded a CBI probe into the multi-core mining and coal scams in Odisha. He said, “Irrespective of the credentials of the CBI, the Central agency should inquire into the mining and coal scams in the State.”
He alleged that the BJD Government led by Naveen Patnaik has been trying to shield its irregularities in the process of coal block allocation and large-scale irregular mining.
Mitra said that in the wake of allegations of large-scale mining scam, the BJP Government in Goa had already stopped all mines, while in Karnataka the CBI had undertaken an inquiry into the mining scam. To a question, Mitra ruled out any possibility of an alliance with the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha in the coming polls.
“With all authority, I would like to make it clear that the BJP would not forge any pre- or- post-poll alliance with the BJD under any circumstance,” Mitra clarified.
Mitra was deputed by the party’s Central team to make the public aware of the Congress-led UPA Government’s scam ridden regime for the last nine years.
Stating that the Prime Minister is pretending that he was unaware of the corruption charges against his Ministerial colleagues right under his nose, Mitra said the Prime Minister knew every thing.
“Now the cat is out of the bag with the deposition of A Raja to the JPC on the 2G spectrum scandal in which he has categorically said that Finance Minister P Chidambaram and the Prime Minister himself were kept informed by him at every stage of the illegal allotment of 2G spectrum,” the BJP National Executive Member said.
Citing the resignation of law Minister Ashwani Kumar in the Coalgate report case, Mitra said the Prime Minister was an active partner in tampering with the CBI status report to the Supreme Court.
Slamming the UPA Government of shameless conduct for the manner they tried to alter the CBI report that clearly indicted the Government in the illegal allotment of coal block, he said it was Singh who was the Minister of coal at that time. “It is the Prime Minister who is guilty, not just morally, but in every other way for this brazen loot.”
On the Rail gate, the BJP leader said that former Railway Minister PK Bansal's relatives and officials had been caught red handed for selling posts in the Ministry to the highest bidder. “Such degeneration never happened even in the last days of the Mughal Emperor,” the BJP spokesman said.
Stating that the UPA Government has lost all right to continue in office even for one more day, he said, “ Every day it hangs on to power, a few hundred crores of rupees are stolen from the public.”