Calling for political accountability, the Congress on Friday said ministers should consider stepping down when their closest aides are "sacked for corruption" and should fulfil their 'rajdharma', citing the dismissal of four staff members from Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav's office.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh cited the example of former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and hit out at the government.
"Is the idea of moral responsibility alive in Indian politics? Lal Bahadur Shastri set the highest standards when he resigned as Railway Minister exactly 70 years ago following a train accident in Tamil Nadu. His example is often recalled and has always drawn great admiration but has been very rarely followed, if at all," Ramesh said on X.
"Ministers must feel the urge to take moral responsibility to quit when their closest of close aides are sacked for corruption and four of them that too," he said.
If such ministers were aware of what was happening then they too are culpable, and if they claim ignorance, it is even worse and all the more reason for them to depart, Ramesh said.
"It is time to fulfill their rajdharma, as the then Prime Minister had famously reminded the then Chief Minister of Gujarat fourteen years back. This raj-dharma encompasses both moral responsibility and political accountability," the Congress leader said in an apparent reference to then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi.
The Congress on Thursday alleged that there has been a "gigantic scandal" that has led to the dismissals.
The party had alleged a collapse of governance in the Union environment ministry after four close aides of Yadav were "sacked" in two days.
Ramesh had alleged that the ministry has done little to protect the environment and forests in the country and that the "Paryavaran Mantralay has become a Pravachan Mantralay".
According to separate official orders issued on July 3, the environment ministry simultaneously removed the private secretary to Yadav and two additional private secretaries.
The private secretary to the minister was removed on "administrative grounds", while the appointment of one additional private secretary was terminated and the other additional private secretary was "prematurely repatriated" to his parent cadre.
(With inputs from PTI)