Former prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, who has been summoned as an accused in a coal scam case, on Thursday expressed his delight with the solidarity shown by the Congress Party in his hour of crisis.
“I am more than pleased that Soniaji and the AICC members came to show their solidarity,” he told reporters in parliament.
Earlier today, Congress president Sonia Gandhi led a solidarity march to Dr. Singh’s 3, Motilal Nehru residence, in the national capital, and said that the party was outraged on hearing the news of the summons being served by a court on the former prime minister.
“Dr. Manmohan Singhji is our former prime minister. He is known not only in our country, but throughout the world as being a person of integrity and probity. The Congress Party is fully behind him,” she said.
A special CBI court in Delhi had summoned the former prime minister, former coal secretary P.C. Parakh, industrialist Kumar Manglam Birla and three others in the coal blocks allocation case on Wednesday.
The court summoned them on alleged charges of criminal conspiracy, breach of trust and under various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act. They have all been asked to appear before the court on April 8.
The case pertains to the allocation of the Talabira II coal block in Odisha to M/s Hindalco in 2005, when Dr. Singh was holding the coal portfolio.
