Defending Home Minister P Chidambaram, the Congress on Thursday rejected the demand of the Opposition for his resignation in the wake of the Madras High Court order.
Maintaining that the Election Commission has declared Chidambaram as elected, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh said the Home Minister has not lost the case. Singh said: “He has not lost the case and it has not got anything to do with his functioning as the Home Minister or as a person”.
Referring to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s statement that Chidambaram should quit as his continuance in office will be a blot on democracy, Singh said that as far as Jayalalithaa is concerned, it is a political issue. “The Election Commission has declared Chidambaram as elected and that is it,” he added.
Congress spokesperson Rashid Alvi said: “The BJP should focus on the infighting inside the party and introspect rather than targeting Chidambaram.”
Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid said that it was an election petition trial which is like a civil trial. He said: “Should the Home Minister get a resignation printed because the BJP demands it on a daily basis or should he give it on the Internet? The BJP wakes up in the morning and says that the Home Minister should resign. God knows how manytimes the Home Minister would have resigned had he accepted whatever the BJP said.”