Allow PM to make statement on coal issue: Arun Shourie

Questioning the Bharatiya Janata Party's stand, former telecom minister Arun Shourie on Saturday said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should be allowed to make a statement on coal blocks allocation controversy and said the opposition did not gain much by stalling the Parliament over the issue.

"...Prime Minister was the minister-in-charge (handling coal ministry). He must be given the opportunity to explain the facts as he sees them," Shourie, who was a minister in the A B Vajpayee government, told the media in Chennai on the sidelines of an event.

On the BJP disrupting Parliament proceedings, Shourie said, "As I understand it, the grievance of the opposition is not the debate but that nothing happens after the debate."

"Therefore, some politicians are let off and that is their grievance. But once the government demonstrates action that will follow, then there will be no problem. In the end, the opposition does not gain much by disrupting Parliament," he said.

Shourie, however, said while the Opposition takes a stand, it "finds a reason not to pursue" it after five days, recalling the BJP's boycott of Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the Parliament demanding his resignation over the 2G scam.

"After a few days, everything was forgotten and Chidambaram continued to speak in Parliament and they said nothing," he said.

If the MPs felt 'outraged', they should be Gandhian and not compromise. Otherwise, it seems "its just for the moment."

On Chidambaram being re-assigned the finance ministry, he said, "No doubt, the country is suffering from his budgets, of the deficits which he pioneered, of the populist schemes which he included, of the off-budget items which he did not include in the budget and all of which had inflationary consequences."