The opposition party asked the prime minister and the Congress chief to clarify why scandals were becoming a "regular feature" in the UPA.
The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today demanded the immediate resignation of Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan for his alleged complicity in the Adarsh Housing Society scam and asked the prime minister and the Congress chief to clarify why scandals were becoming a "regular feature" in UPA II.
"The prime minister [Manmohan Singh] has a clean image, all right. But scandal after scandal is becoming a regular feature in the United Progressive Alliance government. Why is there no sense of outrage in him or Congress chief Sonia Gandhi?" BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman asked.
She described the Adarsh society scam as the "most unethical, heartless and most shameless scam" as widows of war heroes and soldiers who were maimed in the Kargil war were to be given these flats but "this nexus" had taken them over.
"The Maharashtra chief minister should just resign and allow space for an inquiry. We also want the Congress party to respond. Why is it silent on this issue?" Nirmala said.
The BJP leader alleged that Chavan's involvement had been irrefutably established by documents indicating that he was in touch with Adarsh Housing Society office-bearers even as state revenue minister in 2000.
"Four of his relatives own flats in this society. In 1999-2000, when the file was being processed, Chavan was the revenue minister, a department that deals with land allotments in the state. And when the project got its final clearance from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), he is the chief minister," she said.
The BJP demanded a "comprehensive probe" into the issue by a sitting Supreme Court judge and invocation of the Defence of India Rules, which empower the Centre to act in the security interests of India, to cancel the society's occupation certificate.
The principal opposition enumerated the alleged scams that have taken place in the UPA regime, from 2G spectrum allocation and paid news scandal in Maharashtra, in which, too, Chavan was involved, to the Commonwealth Games and the foodgrains scandals.
"This is a copybook case of corruption and nepotism going hand in hand," Nirmala said of the Adarsh Society scam, and insisted that the involvement of bureaucrats, politicians and generals should also be investigated.
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