New Delhi:
Sticking to its demand for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's resignation for the irregularities in coal block allocation, the BJP today termed the UPA government as "most corrupt" and demanded cancellation of 142 allocated coal blocks.
"There is no doubt that this UPA government is most corrupt of all times. Earlier, Bofors scam was considered the biggest in which Rs 64 crore taken as bribe," Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said at a dharna in Delhi by the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) on coal block allocation scam.
In the 2G scam, in which the government lost around Rs 1.76 lakh crore as highlighted by the CAG, "our Prime Minister said he was not directly responsible but now in the allocation of coal blocks he is directly responsible as most of them were allocated during the period when the coal ministry was with him," Mr Jaitley said.
He said the government had decided to auction the coal blocks in 2004 but after passage of eight years, no action has been taken.
The BJP leader said that had the coal blocks been auctioned, the government would have not only earned revenue but would have been able to reduce taxes. This proves that the CAG was almost correct in the presumptive figure of losses.
"We demand from this government to cancel the allocation and auction them," Mr Jaitley said.
Referring to the spectrum allocation, he said, "In the auction of 3G spectrum, after 2G scam, the government has earned Rs one lakh crore. And when the government has decided to auction 2G spectrum, the minimum price for it was Rs 14,000 crore against a total of Rs 1,648 crore what the government got when they allotted it without auction."