Posted on 12/06/2005 11:16:52 PM PST by indianrightwinger
Mon Dec 5, 5:32 AM ET
NEW DELHI (AFP) - India's opposition piled pressure on the government in parliament over new charges that the former foreign minister and the ruling Congress party joined a scam to profit from the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq. ADVERTISEMENT
Trouble erupted within minutes of parliament assembling as MPs belonging to the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) jumped to their feet to demand the resignation of ex-foreign minister Natwar Singh, now serving as cabinet minister without portfolio.
Speaker Somnath Chatterjee said the opposition could discuss later the new charges that Singh and the Congress party received special vouchers to purchase oil cheaply from Baghdad in 2001 in return for political support.
But the opposition, whose campaign to embarrass the government in parliament fell short last week, voiced determination to capitalise on the disclosures about the scandal made on Friday by Congress insider Anil Matherani.
Chatterjee first adjourned the parliamentary session for 30 minutes, then till later in the afternoon and finally for the day.
BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra has warned his party would adopt an "aggressive posture" in parliament this week.
"We will insist on Natwar Singh's resignation from the union cabinet and Sonia Gandhi's resignation as chairperson of the National Advisory Council," a body that provides an interface between the government and civil society, Malhotra said Sunday.
His comments came after Matherani's disclosure that the Iraqis had rewarded Singh with an oil allotment for his "personal service".
Matherani had been posted as ambassador to Croatia but was recalled to New Delhi at the weekend after his revelations.
"The fact of the matter is that both allottees ... in my view are exactly the same ... one has been (given) to Natwar and the other one to the Congress party," Matherani told the India Today magazine.
Singh led a four-member team to Iraq in 2001 that included Matherani.
Matherani's comments caused a furore in parliament Friday and the opposition demanded that Singh be dumped from his current cabinet position.
If declared innocent by an official investigation into the charges made in a United Nations report, Singh was due to resume his post as foreign minister.
But Singh was also sacked from his post in the Congress Steering Committee, the party's highest decision-making body, at a Sunday night meeting chaired by Gandhi, the Congress party chief.
"We are not saying that Natwar Singh is guilty or not guilty," said Science and Technology minister Kapil Sibal.
"We only said that Singh's continuance in the steering committee had become untenable ... Natwar Singh has an acute mind, he understands subtleties of the game," Sibal told reporters.
In October, former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker issued a UN report which said that ousted president Saddam Hussein's regime manipulated the oil-for-food programme to extract about 1.8 billion dollars in surcharges and bribes.
Volcker named Singh as a beneficiary of four million barrels of Iraqi oil.
Congress, India's oldest political party, was also listed as a beneficiary of a separate allotment of four million barrels.
Singh has consistently denied any wrongdoing, as has the Congress party.
Political analysts described the crisis as the biggest challenge yet for the government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which completed one year in office last May.
It is just that France has a bad trend to tolerate corruption. It is also well known for corruption in the government. Indians should be happy that they are not helpless as the colonialist France.
"The enemy of your enemy is your friend."
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