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Updated: Nov 25, 2016 19:07 IST

Union power minister Piyush Goyal on Friday lashed out at Manmohan Singh saying that “a historic and world-class example of organised loot” took place under the former Prime Minister’s watch when coal blocks were allocated for free to relatives and supporters of Congress leaders.

Goyal was addressing traders and industrialists in Indore on issues arising out of demonetisation.

“There was absolutely no transparency in coal block allocation, and (Singh) he is teaching us what organised loot is,” Goyal said, adding that “I wanted to stand up and ask what were you doing when in Coalgate thousands of crores were being plundered under your eyes as you were also the coal minister.”

Read | Point-counterpoint: What Manmohan, Modi said on demonetisation

On Thursday, Singh had lambasted the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Rajya Sabha, saying the implementation of demonetisation was a “monumental management failure” and a case of “organised loot and legalised plunder”.

“I have seen the documents and if there is a historic and world class example of organised loot then that was coal block allocation, where blocks were distributed free of cost to party MP, minister’s relatives and party supporters,” said Goyal, who is the coal minister.

Taking another jibe at the former PM, Goyal added: “Manmohan Singh quoted John Keynes that ‘in the long run we are all dead’ but perhaps he doesn’t know or remember another of his quotes, ‘when the facts change, I change my mind, what do you do’”.

Read | Manmohan calls cash chaos ‘loot and plunder’, sees drop in GDP growth

Goyal also disputed the former prime minister’s statement that the GDP will drop by 2%.

“I am a CA and I can say that in this quarter there will be some effect but not on year as a whole. Everybody understands that if every transaction is brought on books and becomes white then the GDP will rise,” he said.

Goyal was accompanied by BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya.