By IANS,
New Delhi : Claiming that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had come round its point of view, the Left Monday demanded that the UPA government cancel at least 90 disputed coal blocks of the total 142 allotted and probe their allocations to break the parliament logjam.
“We have been asking for cancellation of coal blocks and a probe into the allocations… The government should take some initiative now as the BJP has also come around to our view,” Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters here.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in a report has quantified that the nation has lost around Rs.1.85 lakh crore ($37 billion) in coal block allocations to private players.
Yechury said these 90 mines have not produced any coal and their cancellation would allow the government to run parliament for the remaining period of the monsoon session, which ends Sep 7.
“The session could be extended, if there is need,” Yechury added.
During the last two weeks, proceedings in the monsoon session of parliament have repeatedly been blocked by the BJP which is protesting on the coal blocks allocation issue.
Accusing both the Congress and the BJP of “match fixing” in not allowing parliament to run and debate the issue, the CPI-M leader said the BJP was now supporting its view of cancelling the licences.
“The government can cancel the blocks where it thinks irregularities have been committed so that the ones given to public utilities for power generation are not disturbed,” he said.
Yechury said the private players who were given coal blocks showed them as assets to borrow large sums from banks to further their business interests.
“This is the real scam,” he said.