Sticking to its demand for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's resignation for the irregularities in coal block allocation, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday termed the United Progressive Alliance government as the "most corrupt" and demanded cancellation of 142 allocated coal blocks.
"There is no doubt that this UPA government is the most corrupt government of all times. Earlier, the Bofors scam was considered the biggest, in which Rs 64 crore was taken as bribe," Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said at a dharna organised by the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha on the coal block allocation scam.
In the 2G scam, in which the government lost nearly Rs 1.76 lakh crore as highlighted by the CAG, "our prime minister said he was not directly responsible. But now, in the allocation of coal blocks, he is directly responsible as most of them were allocated during the period when the coal ministry was with him," Jaitley said.
He said the government had decided to auction the coal blocks in 2004, but even after the passage of eight years, no action had been taken.
The BJP leader said had the coal blocks been auctioned, the government would have not only earned revenue but would have been able to reduce taxes. This proves that the CAG was almost correct in the presumptive figure of losses.
"We demand that this government cancel the allocation and auction them," Jaitley said.
Referring to the spectrum allocation, he said, "In the auction of 3G spectrum, after 2G scam, the government has earned Rs one lakh crore. And when the government has decided to auction 2G spectrum, the minimum price for it was Rs 14,000 crore against a total of Rs 1,648 crore -- what the government got when they allotted it without auction."
