Coal-gate: BJP leaders demand Prez intervention

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday took its grievances against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress-led United Progressive Alliance to President Pranab Mukherjee, demanding his intervention on the coal allocation issue and attacks on a constitutional institution like the Comptroller and Auditor General.

BJP Parliamentary Party chief L K Advani, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, her Rajya Sabha counterpart Arun Jaitley and Public Accounts Committee chairperson Murli Manohar Joshi met Mukherjee and submitted a memorandum expressing 'deep anguish and profound concern' over the prime minister and Congress questioning the CAG report on coal scam.

"Members of Parliament and high functionaries belonging to the Congress party and the Prime Minister himself have gone public in criticising the CAG's report. Motives, including that of having political ambitions, have been openly attributed to the CAG.... What is most shocking are the statements of the prime minister in Parliament and public on August 27," the party said in the memorandum.

The BJP alleged that CAG's authority in conducting performance audit has been challenged several times. "In Parliament, the Prime Minister had said that the observations of the CAG are clearly disputable and further that CAG's findings are flawed on multiple counts," it said.

Talking to reporters later, Advani maintained that the BJP delegation met the President as 'it is his duty as defender of the Constitution' to look into the matter.

"When the prime minister himself uses such language it gives a license to his followers to do so too," he said. Mukherjee heard the views of the BJP leaders patiently and promised to look into the matter, he said.

With inputs from PTI