PM should take responsibility for coal scam: BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Wednesday said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should take "final responsibility" for the irregularities in coal block allocation.

"The fact remains that coal scam is a monumental corruption and at that time the coal minister was the prime minister... So every coal allotment has happened with his signature and, therefore, he has to take the final responsibility," BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said Wednesday.

"The Congress is engrossed in a massive cover up and is trying to save the PM. This is a complete scam and Congress wants us to believe they gave it (coal blocks) for free," Javadekar said.

He also said that the FIR against former coal secretary P.C. Parekh "is a method to scare the bureaucracy".

"It is high time the bureaucrats speak up against all wrongdoings," he said.

CBI has filed FIRs against Parekh and industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla for alleged irregularities and criminal conspiracy in the allocation of two coal blocks.

Parekh Wednesday said it was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who decided the allocation of two coal blocks in Odisha in 2005 over which the CBI has filed the FIRs naming him.