Coal scam: Left parties want PM to face Parliament

New Delhi: Left parties on Tuesday termed as "meaningless" the demand for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's resignation over the coal allocation issue but asked him to face Parliament as he "owes an answer" to the country. CPI(M) also dubbed the disruption of Parliament as "match fixing" between BJP and Congress.

"Demanding resignation of the government is meaningless and it does not happen," CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters outside Parliament. "On the garb of PM's resignation demand, you are allowing the government a free hand to do what ever they want. This is one kind of match fixing between BJP and the Congress," he said.

"Parliament is not functioning, no debate is taking place and there no accountability. A match fixing is going on which is helping the government to avoid debate. We want the government to be accountable to Parliament," he said. CPI National Secretary D Raja said the Supreme Court has passed "really strong strictures" against the government on the working of the CBI while Forward Bloc Secretary G Deverajan said no other Prime Minister has faced such criticism from the apex court.

However, both the leaders said the Left parties were not seeking Singh's resignation as they wanted to listen to the Prime Minister who should own moral responsibility for the developments. "The observations of the Supreme Court are strong. Now the Supreme Court observations show that what we were saying were right. Singh should own moral responsibility. Its not the Law Minister alone who is responsible. The Prime Minister should own up responsibility and face Parliament. Now the continuation of the Law Minister has become untenable," Raja said.

Deverajan said the Prime Minister owes an explanation as he was in-charge of the Coal ministry at the time of the scam. Yechury said, "Observations made by the SC have only vindicated what we are saying all along that the CBI is becoming a political arm of the government of the day and that is not in the interest of the country. We are for independent panel of advocates for CBI."