The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday rejected the no-loss theory on the allocation of coal blocks to private players of Congress-led UPA government, and blamed it was trying to mislead the people.
'When coal blocks are allocated, the right to mine rests with the private allottees, not government of India. Even without actual mining, the government has lost control over those mines at a throw-away price,' Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said at a press conference at the party office here.
He also pointed union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, saying that he had not learnt anything from the failure of zero-loss theory earlier in case of 2G spectrum allocation scam.
'When the 2G scandal happened, Kapil Sibal (now communications minister) propounded the zero-loss theory. He could not mislead the people and eventually had to eat his words,' Jaitley said, slamming the United Progressive Alliance government.
'If the coal is not being mined, there is no question of gain or loss... the notion of this presumptive loss is flawed,' Chidambaram said on Friday.
Defending the protest of BJP in the parliament against the coal scam, he said that the government wanted to defend itself based on such 'fragile logic'.
Earlier, BJP demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was incharge of coal ministry at the time of allocation of coal blocks without auction.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) said last week reported parliament that lack of transparency in allocation of coal blocks to private players has resulted in a notional loss of Rs.1.85 lakh crore ($37 billion) to the exchequer.
-With inputs from IANS
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