Come clean on PM’s ‘political authority’: BJP to Sonia, Rahul on books row

New Delhi: BJP on Monday asked Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi to come out clean on the issues of diarchy and political authority of the prime minister raised in the books written by former Coal Secretary P C Parakh and the PM's former aide Sanjaya Baru.

"The two books have only reinforced what BJP has been saying all this while. The family cannot any longer run away from the responsibility of answering questions. It is now time to answer questions. It is time for them to come out clean, rather than go on deflecting from this issue.

"It is time now for answers to the questions Parakh and Baru have spoken of and it is those issues that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi must answer...dynastic politics has ruined the country in the last ten years and dynastic politics has happily looked the other way even as the sanctioned loots were happening and the Prime Minister or others were not available for the answers," BJP Spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said.

She said Baru and Parakh underlined the fact that everything revolves around "the first family" and institutional mechanism had no place to play.

Referring to Parakh's charge that a transparent coal block allocation process was not being accepted, she said he has written in the book that "bureaucrats who have integrity and honesty could not function" during this regime.

Sitharaman also said that while the leadership, credits, decisions went in favour of the family, when it came to responsibility, acceptability of wrong-doing or blame and accountability, it was not given to the family.