By IANS,
New Delhi : The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) had not issued any orders to help a firm owned by Shipping and Road Transport Minister T.R. Baalu’s son, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora told the Rajya Sabha Wednesday.
“The PMO has not issued any order to help the company of T.R. Baalu’s son,” Deora told the house.
He said no instructions or orders were issued in this regard and neither was any gas supplied to King Chemicals, the company owned by Baalu’s son S.K. Baalu.
Deora said he did meet T.R. Baalu a few times but the discussion was about the injustices to workers in his firm.
However, the Times Now TV channel said it had documents to prove that as many as eight letters were exchanged between Deora’s ministry and the PMO between Nov 27, 2007 and Feb 4, 2008 in this matter.
Deora told the house that certain references were received in a routine manner.
Deora’s speech was disrupted by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members who demanded a statement on the issue by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
“We want a statement from the prime minister. We will not let Murli Deora speak,” BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said. The house had to be adjourned for the day following the BJP protests.
Last week, Baalu had admitted in the house that he had sought intervention of the petroleum ministry to restart gas supply to King Chemicals, saying the supply was stopped when he ceased to be a minister in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in 2003.