While both Houses were adjourned till Monday with BJP MPs leading the charge against Chidambaram, the communists also sought his “immediate” resignation.
Calling for home minister P Chidambaram’s resignation over his alleged “misuse of office” for the benefit of his former client and Delhi-based businessman SP Gupta, the Left parties on Friday joined the BJP chorus inside and outside Parliament.
While both the Houses were expectantly adjourned till Monday with BJP MPs leading the charge against Chidambaram, the communists also sought his “immediate” resignation.
Having decided to distance itself from the BJP “boycott” of Chidambaram over the 2G scam at the start of the current session, the Left on Friday revised its long-held view of “not targeting any individual” in the larger debate on corruption.
CPI(M) MP Basudeb Acharia who demanded in the Lok Sabha that the home minister resigned, later told DNA that the “matter is serious” and that the Left “hopes” that prime minister Manmohan Singh, scheduled to return to India from Russia on Sunday, takes “urgent stock” of the issue.
“Upon his return, the prime minister should take up this matter. The home minister must resign from the cabinet. Delhi’s Lt Governor’s decision yesterday (Thursday) to revoke an earlier decision to withdraw prosecution against SP Gupta seems to suggest that a conflict of interest did exist in this case,” Acharia said.
The CPI, too, urged the prime minister’s “involvement.” “The prime minister owes the country an explanation. He should clarify the government’s position on Chidambaram,” CPI national secretary D Raja told DNA.
According to Raja, the portfolio of internal security that Chidambaram holds “makes him one of the most powerful ministers in the government… Chidambaram cannot hold such an important ministry and not answer the allegations being leveled against him.” On Monday, too, the BJP and the Left are unlikely to allow the House to function over the issue.
Meanwhile, the government seems to be mulling over whether to extend the winter session by another day so as to introduce the Lokpal bill. The winter session is scheduled to end on December 22.
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