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Jaiswal challenges BJP to prove coal block allegations

September 11, 2012 20:03 IST

Challenging Bharatiya Janata Party leaders to prove their allegations against him in the coal block allocation issue, Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal on Tuesday said they were free to visit his office to collect any information.

"An attempt is being made to create confusion... it is my challenge that I will be in the office tomorrow, they come and take all information after that either they should have to apologise to the country or I will," Jaiswal told the media in Lucknow. He alleged that BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad has levelled false allegations that allocation started after Jaiswal became the coal minister.

"BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad once again started the business of falsification. He gave the statement that coal block allocation (has happened) after Sriprakash Jaiswal became the coal minister," he said.

"In this connection I want to claim and also give a challenge, first thing total 195 blocks were allotted from 1993 till regime of UPA I, which had been replied in the Parliament question several times," he said.

"Was 196th block allotted? If not, then those indulging into face saving and politics should get rid of their habit," he said.

He said not once but several times, it has been said that no allocation was done after 2009.

"Due to the election process if allocation process cannot go ahead, it was issued by the signature of the under secretary. But approval of all allocations were taken with the permission from the competent authority and screening committee in the regime of UPA I...after that no one had the courage to allot a single block," he said.

The minister said efforts were being made to level another allegation that one Manoj Kumar Jaiswal, to whom several blocks were allotted, was his relative. "My first question is that when as the coal minister when I did not allocate even a single block, then what is... relative and non-relative," he said.