Newly appointed All India Congress Committee (AICC) spokesperson P C Chacko MP on Saturday rubbished the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report on coal block allocations saying, ‘there is no element of truth’ in the report.
While reiterating the government’s stand on the issue, that it had not incurred any loss in the coal block allocation process he said, “No law permits the CAG to prepare an audit of ‘presumptive loss’ on behalf of the government and it should think whether the report is legally sustainable in the court.”
“The CAG’s duty is to audit the government accounts and not to make presumptive loss theories. However, the government has no idea to clip the wings of the CAG over the issue,” he said.
In reply to the current stalemate in Parliament, he said the UPA is being unnecessarily targeted by the BJP over the presumptive loss theory of the CAG. “The BJP’s attempt to fish in troubled waters will not succeed and they cannot question the integrity of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the issue,” he said.
While denying the rep orts that the Congress fears a mid-term poll, he said: “The BJP’s attempt, in collusion with Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev, to impose a mid-term poll on the people, especially when the country is going through a series of economic setbacks, will have a catastrophic effect on the economy.”
The BJP has held the Prime Minister, who was holding the coal portfolio at the time when the government reportedly suffered the loss, responsible for what has been a notional loss of `1.86 lakh crore by the CAG in coal block allocation and demanded his resignation.
The CAG report on coal block allocation states that nearly 150 coalfields were allotted to private and state-run firms without transparency between 2005 and 2009.
Comments
0 comment