Rajnath demands PM's resignation over Coalgate scam

Says after SC's observations, if PM stays then it would be keeping aside morality

BJP President Rajnath Singh today demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the Coalgate scam in which the CBI's status report was vetted before being submitted to the Supreme Court.

"When the Prime Minister himself is under suspicion...Why was the CBI report in the Coalgate probe changed in former law Minister Ashwani Kumar's room?" BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said, giving details of Singh's inaugural speech at the party National Executive meeting here.

"After seeing the changes, the Supreme Court observed that the soul of the report has been changed. If after this observation, the Prime Minister still remains in his office, then it would be keeping aside morality. We demand that he (Singh) should immediately resign," he said.

Ashwani Kumar had to resign from the post of Law Minister following revelations that he had vetted the CBI's status report on the coal blocks allocation case before it was submitted to the Supreme Court.

Earlier, the BJP President had demanded that since the Prime Minister held the coal portfolio when the controversial block allocations were made, he should introspect on who should be held accountable.

Commenting on the celebrations of the nine years of UPA rule, Javadekar said, "When there is political and economic crisis in the country after nine years of UPA rule, what is the need for these celebrations? You do not celebrate destructions."

On the Congress' charge that BJP had disrupted the last Parliament session, Javadekar said the government was responsible for the whole situation as it had not met the opposition's demand for the resignations of then Union Ministers Pawan Kumar Bansal and Ashwani Kumar.

"We were only demanding the resignations of the Law Minister and the Railway Minister. They did not agree to our demands then, but later both of them had to resign. This could have done earlier too. So, it is the government which is responsible for this, " he said.