BJP leaders LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley seen entering PM's house for dinner
The Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP today said will continue to disrupt Parliament over missing coal files in the last three days of the monsoon session, which ends on Friday.
Top BJP leaders who dined with the Prime Minister last night, gave him no assurance that they would facilitate the clearance of at least five crucial Bills.
Dr Manmohan Singh reportedly urged his guests - Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and LK Advani - to "forget the past" and allow Parliament to function, assuring them that his government too wants a thorough probe into "Coal-gate."
But the appeal failed to change the BJP's strategy on attacking the government over the coal scandal. Though the opposition party did help clearing important legislation through last week, there was a breakdown in the working relationship established when the Prime Minister attacked the BJP in Parliament after his statement on the economy.
At the dinner meeting, the BJP leaders reportedly also told the PM that "tempers are running high" in the party over the manner in which Dr Singh walked out of both Houses "in a huff" and without making clarifications sought, after his coal statement yesterday.
The Prime Minister said in that statement, "At this stage, it would be premature to say that files are missing." He also said that "the government has nothing to hide" and is working to track down the documents.
The opposition party has attacked Dr Singh over important documents related to coal field allocations to private firms that are missing. The BJP says some of the missing records relate to mining licenses issued when the Prime Minister held direct charge of the Coal Ministry.
The Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI, which is investigating "Coal-gate", has alleged that mining licenses were assigned opaquely, without a bidding process, allegedly at a cost of thousands of crores to the country. It also says there are inadequate records to explain how some firms, including a couple linked to Congress leaders, managed to get mining rights.