A day after the PM said he was ready to face the CBI in the coal scam, the BJP on Friday said Manmohan Singh’s questioning will be “meaningless” as the agency comes under the PMO’s purview. An impartial probe into the coal scam can only take place once the PM steps down from office, the BJP maintained.
Accusing Singh of “hiding” things and having made similar statements in the past, the BJP cited the example of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 2G Spectrum scam, saying the PM never appeared before it despite a strong demand for the same and had instead offered to do so before the Public Accounts Committee, which anyway had no power to summon him.
“The only option before him is to quit, come clean and appear before CBI... The question is that the country’s Prime Minister is under suspicion. If CBI questions the country’s Prime Minister, what signals would it sendIJ That is why we have said the Prime Minister should resign and (then) appear before CBI,” BJP leader Yashwant Sinha said.
Sinha said CBI would be afraid how to question the Prime Minister and, hence, Singh should quit before facing the probe agency.
In Srinagar, BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said, “The investigation has reached the door of the Prime Minister. Now he is saying he is ready to go to CBI. (But) CBI is under the PMO. Its administrative control is with PMO. His joint secretary changed the CBI status report. So, saying that he is ready to go to CBI is meaningless. Perhaps he is thinking that he will get a clean chit from the agency the same way that Pawan Bansal, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav did.”
In Patna, another BJP spokesperson, Shahnawaz Hussain, said, “If you (Singh) are not tainted, if you feel you can answer the questions, then answer as the Coal Minister and as Manmohan Singh... Do not stick to the Prime Minister’s chair.”