Coal scam: Congress out in full support for Manmohan Singh

New Delhi: The Congress is coming out in full force to defend former prime minister Manmohan Singh who has been summoned as an accused in the coal block allocation scam case. Congress President Sonia Gandhi along with senior party leaders marched from Congress headquarters to Manmohan Singh’s house to express solidarity with him.

Sonia said, “We are outraged at news of summons being served to Manmohan Singh. He is being in the world over as the man of integrity, probity. The Congress is fully behind him. We are sure that he will be vindicated.”
Backing Manmohan Singh, former finance minister P Chidambaram said, “The whole world is aware of the personal integrity and honesty of Dr Manmohan Singh. We respect the judicial system. This case has been a misstep.”

Sonia has also called for a working committee meet and is likely to speak in Singh’s defence. The meeting is also to discuss to counter attacks from the Bharatiya Janata Party on Manmohan Singh.

Senior leaders Anand Sharma, Janardhan Dwivedi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Digvijaya Singh, Ambika Soni, Veerappa Moily, P Chidambaram, Ajay Maken, Ghulam Nabi Azad, AK Antony, Ashwini Kumar reach AICC office.

Former coal secretary PC Parakh, Hindalco, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla and two others were also summoned as accused in the case. They have been asked to appear in the special court on April 8.

The court summoned them for offences of criminal conspiracy, breach of trust and under provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act.

Singh has already been questioned once in the case. He was examined on January 18 at his Motilal Nehru Marg residence in New Delhi. A team of top CBI officials, including a DIG, questioned the former prime minister. Questions related to his knowledge about allocation and reasons for making deviations for a specific case were asked, the sources added.

Singh is the first former prime minister to have been interrogated in any case.Singh’s examination was in connection with allocation of Talabira II block to Hindalco when he was also holding the portfolio of coal.
Singh has defended his decision to allocate coal blocks to Hindalco and said it was approved after due deliberations.

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Source:Ibnlive

Manmohan Singh