Coalgate: BJP prepares for nation-wide campaign

In this context, top BJP leaders are "educating" their workers so that they could inform people about the issue and the party's position.

Addressing one such session here, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj today told workers that the party will continue its protest till the allotments of coal blocks are cancelled and auctions are announced.

"We will continue our protest till these allocations are cancelled. Government must announce auction to prove that the money out of previous allocation has not gone into the kitty of Congress party," she said.

Asking the party cadre to gear itself up for a "sustained battle" against the Congress, she said, "We all must arm ourselves with logics and facts regarding this issue. It is being discussed (coal controversy) everywhere and we must ensure that the culprit is punished."

Referring to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's reply last week over this issue, where he recited a couplet saying that his silence is better than thousand questions, Swaraj said, "He cannot escape our questions by reciting poems. This is one scam in which Congress party and Prime Minister are directly in the dock."

On her telephonic conversation with Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi last week, she said, "Sonia Gandhi had asked me to suggest ways to end this deadlock in Parliament. I told her that the only possible way to do so is to cancel these allocations. She had said that she will put this suggestion before the Prime Minister."

For the first time the allegation of corruption has fallen on Congress, otherwise the blame was on its allies in all such previous cases, she said. (More)