PM should step down over Coalgate: Poll

New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should step down over the Rs 1.86 lakh crore coal scam. However, the beleagured PM has little to fall back on since an equally strong number of respondents in an online poll do not want Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi to take over as the PM either. Moreover, an overwhelming majority of the respondents believe in BJP leader Sushma Swaraj's allegation that the Congress party got 'mota maal' (fat kickbacks) for allocating coal blocks to a section of favoured corporates and political leaders.

As the monsoon session of the Parliament witnessed a complete washout on Friday, IBNLive conducted Coal Poll, an online poll to guage the mood of the nation vis-a-vis the Coalgate scam, which has been the second biggest blow to the UPA government after the 2G Spectrum scam. 75% of the 2500-odd respondents in the poll said they want PM Manmohan Singh to step down as India's PM. A mere 303 respondents (12%), however, wanted Rahul Gandhi to take over as the mantle from Singh while 1,873 respondents (75%) said the Gandhi scion should not take over the country's governance.

An emphatic 80% of the respondents also said the coal blocks alloted so far should be cancelled. Even as most of India's power sector is dependent on coal, fewer respondents (18%) believed that cancelling coal blocks will lead to any power crisis in the country.

Even as the UPA blamed the BJP and its allies for stalling work in Parliament for yet another session, a majority of the Coal Poll respondents denied the charge. Only 34% of the respondents blamed the BJP for not letting the Parliament work, while almost 60% approved the party's decision to stall the proceedings. Moreover, only half the respondents thought the Coalgate scam should have been debated in the Parliament, while 42% were against the idea of any Parliamentary debate on the scam.

60% of the respondents, however, blamed all the political parties across the spectrum for the coal scam. The CBI is also set to investigate the role of various Chief Ministers, including some from the BJP, for illegal allocations of coal mines. Still, only 4% of the respondets considered the BJP to be corrupt as opposed to 73% of the respondents who said Congress was the most corrupt party in the country.

Reflecting a growing cynicism among the netizens on corruption in politics, 1940 respondents (78%) said all political parties display double standards on corrupt practices.

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