PM should reply on coal gate charges: Suravaram

HYDERABAD: CPI on Thursday demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reply to charges of irregularities in allocation of coal blocks instead of evading an answer over the issue.The CAG report submitted to Parliament says that the government incurred losses to a tune of Rs 10 lakh crore due to allocation of coal blocks to private companies. The CAG said the coal blocks were allotted when the portfolio was held by the PMO. ‘’The Prime Minister asserts he is clean but his responsibility would not go by saying so. He should reply what is his responsibility and that of the PMO,” CPI general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy told reporters here on Thursday. “The Prime Minister is trying to evade a reply by saying that he is clean and that his integrity cannot be questioned. PMO had a role in the matter and we demand that he take responsibility for it,” he said.On petrol price hike, Reddy demanded that the Centre and states should reduce taxes imposed by them on petroleum products to alleviate the burden on common man. Slamming petroleum minister S Jaipal Reddy for his reported comments that all parties indulged in populist measures, the CPI leader said it is meaningless to describe the demand for reducing the “abnormally high taxes imposed by the government” as populism.“How can Reliance company be allowed to export some of its petroleum products at a time when petrol is being imported for domestic consumption,” he said.Finding fault with the white paper released by the Centre on black money, he said it did not give information on who were the depositors and the promise of confiscating the wealth.