Congress to take Chhattisgarh's coal mining expose to public

Raipur, April 16 (IANS) Chhattisgarh's opposition Congress has decided to take to the public a recent report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on coal mining in order to "expose" the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, party sources said Monday.

"The Congress will start holding a series of public meetings in all the 27 districts from this month-end to brief the public about a recent CAG expose to convince people that the saffron government is mired in corruption scandals,'' top sources in the Congress here informed.

The source added that the Congress was maintaining its position for a long time that the present BJP regime is involved in massive corruption and the CAG report has largely vindicated the party's stand.

A delegation of the Congress' Chhattisgarh unit had called on President Pratibha Patil last September and submitted a memorandum accusing the BJP government of being involved in corruption scandals to the tune of Rs.20,000 crore.

The BJP, which is ruling the mineral-rich state since December 2003, has come under sharp attack from the Congress over the CAG report which has indicated several lapses on the part of the government leading to huge revenue loss to the state.

The Congress has demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Raman Singh over the report.

The CAG report for fiscal year ended March 31, 2011, said early this month that the Chhattisgarh Mineral Development Corporation (CMDC) accepted lower rates for commercial mining of two key coal blocks in the state's northern region which led to a revenue loss of over Rs.1,000 crore.

The Congress has also attacked BJP president Nitin Gadkari and said the coal exploration contract was awarded to a firm linked to Ajay Sancheti, an associate of Gadkari who was elected to the Rajya Sabha last month.