In keeping with his party’s strategy to pin down the the Congress-led UPA government on corruption and its refusal to remove “tainted ministers” despite adverse Supreme Court observations, senior BJP leader L K Advani has said that the government has been rallying behind Union Law Minister Ashwani Kumar as his removal from the Cabinet would made the Prime Minister’s continuance untenable.
In a blog post titled “The Emperor has no clothes”, Advani remarked: “Having decided to brazenly defend its two ministers, particularly its Law Minister, whose dropping from the government would have made the PM’s continuance untenable, the government adjourned Parliament sine die two days ahead of schedule, on May 8 instead of May 10”.
The BJP leader implied that the government had decided to adjourn Parliament sine die ahead of the schedule to ward off the Opposition pressure on the scams and the “tainted ministers”.
Advani said that the Budget session had failed to transact any business in the last several days “as almost the entire Opposition was angrily demanding that the government be made to pay for the two mega scams- coalgate and railgate”.
“The specific demand was for the resignation of the Prime Minister (who was Coal Minister when the coal allotments were made), the Law Minister and the Railway Minister,” Advani observed. The BJP leader recalled that as a first step to let the two Houses of Parliament function, the “Opposition’s minimum demand was that the Law Minister should resign and the Railway Minister be sacked”. Advani also referred to the Supreme Court observations and said “it had severely chastised the Law Minister and CBI for what they had done”.
After keeping away from the last leg of the nationwide anti-UPA agitation, the BJP top brass, is leading from the front the all-India agitation christened “Sansad se Sadak tak”(from the Parliament to the streets), being planned to protest against the UPA government.
BJP president Rajnath Singh had convened a meeting of party office bearers, including general secretaries, vice-presidents, and secretaries on Thursday. Party vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the coming meeting on Friday the party “would also lay ground for future elections”.