BJP to take coal issue to people's court

PATNA: With the Congress in no mood to oblige BJP on its demand that PM Manmohan Singh resign on the issue of allotment of coal blocks to 142 companies without auction, the party has now decided to take its fight against the Congress on the issue of corruption to people. It, of course, could have ramifications on the JD (U)-BJP relations in the state, as the two parties follow different lines on the matter.
The BJP has already obstructed the functioning of Parliament for the last one week on the issue and there seems to be no sign of the return of normal functioning of Parliament in the immediate future. "We will accept nothing short of the resignation of PM," said BJP's national spokesman and Rajya Sabha member Rajiv Pratap Rudy here on Wednesday.
He said that the party's three national spokesmen would fan out in different states and explain the situation to people. "We will plan and decide the next course of action after that," Rudy said, adding the party's rank and file across the country would take the issue of "monumental corruption" under the Congress to people. Implicitly, it would also be done in Bihar.
Rudy was accompanied by Bihar animal husbandry resources minister Giriraj Singh. Others present on the occasion included the party's state vice-president Lal Babu Prasad and general secretary Mangal Pandey, both MLCs, as well as state spokesmen Prem Ranjan Patel (MLA) and Sudhir Sharma, among others.
Curiously, the leaders of JD (U), an NDA partner, have been talking divergently with the BJP's obstructionist political line in Parliament. They have favoured that there should be a debate in Parliament on the issue of allotment of coal blocks to companies without auction that has resulted in "presumptive loss" of Rs 1.86 lakh crore, as the CAG has put it. Rudy, however, dismissed any suggestion that there were differences between the BJP and the JD (U) on the issue.