Live: Parliament adjourned till Wednesday

New Delhi: 12.45 pm: Rajya Sabha adjourned till Wednesday.

12.35 pm: Congress leader Kapil Sibal on Tuesday defended Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the coal blocks allocation, saying the government is ready to hold discussion in Parliament on the issue. "No company can can sell coal in the country. There should be discussion. There should be politics on discussion and not on levelling charges," he said.

12.20 pm: The NDA is meeting in senior BJP leader LK Advani's room in Parliament to decide the further strategy in Lok Sabha.

12.05 pm: Lok Sabha adjourned till Wednesday.

12.01 pm: Parliament resumes. Opposition and treasury benches indulge in slogan shouting.

11.40 am: On the coal blocks allocation, Congress leader Ambika Soni on Tuesday said that the Opposition should first look at the procedure they adopted during their regime. BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu criticised the UPA government saying "Government is not taking any action. The nation's money is being looted, the whole country is agitated."

11.30 am: The government has rejected the Opposition's demand for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's resignation, saying the BJP should look at its own role in the coal issue.

11.20 am: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to make a statement on coal blocks allocation. Government sources say that the Prime Minister is ready to discuss the issue in Parliament. However, they say that there is no precedence to discuss CAG report when it has already gone to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

10.55 am: Commenting on the coal scam, Communist Party of India leader and Member of Parliament, Gurudas Dasgupta on Tuesday said that Prime Minister Mnamohan Singh has a moral responsibility. "On the issue of resignation, we leave it to his conscience."

Both the Houses of Parliament were adjourned till noon after they witnessed a stormy morning session on Tuesday with the Opposition aggressively pressing for the resignation of Prime Manmohan Singh over the CAG report on coal blocks allocation.

The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha met for the first time on Tuesday since the latest controversy hit the government after three reports of the national auditor were tabled in Parliament on Friday.

Earlier, top BJP leaders met at residence of senior leader L K Advani on Monday evening to firm up the party's strategy to pin down the government on the basis of the CAG reports.

"The BJP is going to very aggressively pursue the demand raised by the leaders of opposition Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on Friday that the Prime Minister needs to introspect and resign because he was himself the Coal Minister for most of the period the allocation of coal blocks was done," BJP Chief Spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

The CAG reports have estimated "undue benefits" of over Rs 3.06 lakh crore to private parties in coal block allotment without bidding, Delhi airport development and diversion of coal to a power project.

The government and Congress have responded aggressively to the CAG reports and the BJP demand for the Prime Minister's resignation, insisting that they were incomplete without being examined by Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

They have been sharply critical of the government auditor accusing him of not following the Constitutional mandate, crossing the line and having the "habit" of adding zeros to its reports.

BJP is likely to reject Congress' possible argument, as a counter-offensive, that Parliament should defer a discussion on the CAG reports till the Public Accounts Committee debates the reports.

(With additional inputs from PTI)

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