Ranchi, Aug 29: The BJP today went into a huddle, holding several meetings to chalk out an action plan to keep up the pressure on Union tourism minister Subodh Kant Sahay over the coal allocation controversy.
Yesterday, the party had accused the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) of recommending two coal blocks in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand to Sahay’s brother in 2008. BJP national general secretary Dharmendra Pradhan, who held the strategy sessions in Ranchi today, demanded a CBI probe into the alleged irregular allotments of coal blocks and also an inquiry by the enforcement directorate into the funding pattern.
Party workers, on the other hand, burnt Prime Minister’s effigy at several places in the state. The BJP youth wing will stage demonstrations at various state headquarters on Friday. while the party’s central leaders will join them on September 1 and 2. Hazaribagh MP Yashwant Sinha will steer the agitation in the state capital.
Citing documentary evidence, Pradhan told a group of journalists that Sahay wrote a letter to the PMO on February 5, 2008, requesting allotment of coal blocks for his brother Sunil Kant Sahay’s company SKS Ispat and Power Limited. The very next day, the PMO directed the Union coal secretary to do the needful and the coal blocks were allotted to him the same day.
Sahay had claimed that his brother’s company was allotted a coal block in 2007, much before he wrote a letter to the PMO. “Either Sahay is misleading us or Union coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal gave false information in the Rajya Sabha two days back. The minister had confirmed that Sahay’s brother’s company was given coal block on February 6, 2008,” Pradhan added.
Sahay was the Union minister of state for food processing when he wrote the controversial letter to the PMO. The coal ministry was headed by the Prime Minister himself, giving enough ammunition to the BJP to demand Manmohan Singh’s resignation and the Ranchi MP’s dismissal from the Union cabinet.
On controversies involving agriculture minister Satyanand Jha Batul, Pradhan said the party was not averse to him undergoing paternity test. “But as Batul’s son has approached the judiciary and the case is also being probed by Jharkhand State Women’s Commission, the BJP will prefer to wait and watch,” he added.
On the future of the alliance government in Jharkhand, Pradhan said he had already spoken to JMM leaders and made it clear that there was no threat to the Arjun Munda government. He argued that a coalition government had its own compulsions, but the BJP would move ahead with its agenda of positive growth for the state.
