PM and UPA ministers are shameless: CPI-M

Congress Party of India - Marxist general secretary Prakash Karat on Friday alleged that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his ministers have became "shameless" as they were claiming that no wrong was done during coal block allocation.

"The PM is saying we have not done anything wrong and other ministers are saying there was zero loss in coal block allocation. They have become shameless to say all this," Karat said.

The United Progressive Alliance government, after coming to power in 2004, had "brazenly given opportunities to capitalists and multi-national companies to loot the natural resources of the country and the coal block allotment was one of the bad examples," he said.

"BJP is demanding the resignation of the prime minister on the coal block allocation issue. The PM said the UPA government was following the line of liberal economic policy formulated by the erstwhile National Democratic Alliance government. We neither support the BJP nor the UPA in this issue," Karat said.

Dr Singh was in Iran to participate in the conference of nonaligned countries, but India has "deviated" from the path of nonaligned movement, he said.

"Now, India's foreign policy is dictated by imperialist America which imposed an economic sanction against Iran and compelled India to cut 40 per cent of oil import from that country," the CPI-M general secretary charged.

"Iran is nearer and so the transport cost of oil from the country is cheaper and the quality of oil is better and the price is cheaper. So, it is harmful to reduce import of oil from the country, but the UPA government had to do so to remain with America," he alleged.