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Bhubaneswar, Mar 11: The summons issued by a special court of New Delhi to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, industrialist KM Birla, ex-coal secretary PC Parakh and three others in connection with allocation of Talabira-II coal block in Sundargarh has raised the temperatures in the political circles in the state.
While Opposition Congress and BJP raised the questions over Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s role in the case, the ruling BJD defended itself by saying it was the Centre’s decision.
Welcoming the decision of the court, leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra said, “The CBI has the right to summon or question anybody if there is prima facie evidence in a corruption case. We’ve no problems with this. However, it is sad to say that probably the CBI has forgotten about Orissa CM.”
Defending his party leader Singh, Mishra said, Singh had said that the coal block was allocated to Hindalco on the basis of the strong recommendation of the Orissa Chief Minister.
However, BJP state unit president KV Singh Deo said, “Be it ex-PM or CM, no one can escape. I know the former PM had said the decision was taken after the CM’s recommendations. I am hopeful that the CM would be summoned by the court in due course.”
Rejecting the predictions, BJD spokesperson Amar Satpathy said, “We must understand the difference between a recommending authority and those responsible for the final decision. The responsibility lies with those who are supposed to assess and scrutinise the recommendation.”
