 |
PM's Resignation Possibly Linked to Shiv Sena Charges
The surprising expression of resignation desire by Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Tuesday morning could be linked with the charges made a day earlier by Shiv Sena, a member party of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), that the Prime Minister's Office had been involved in an investment scam, the Press Trust of India (PTI) said.
Sanjay Nirupam, a Shiv Sena parliament member, created a stir on Monday in the Rajya Sabha, or the upper house of the Indian Parliament, by alleging that there was a link between the Prime Minister's Office and the murky investment operations of the Unit Trust of India (UTI), the country's largest mutual fund based in Mumbai.
Nirupam said that among the 1,300 companies in which the UTI had invested between June 1999 and June 2000, a quarter were bogus companies and about a half were suffering losses by the day.
Nirupam alleged that according to telephone records, former UTI Chairman P S Subramanyam, who is currently in custody, made three phone calls last July from Mumbai to Delhi, two of which were traced to the Prime Minister's Office.
Without giving the exact name, Nirupam had said that one of the calls was made to a person in the Prime Minister's Office, who is now in the Planning Commission.
Nirupam also demanded all private placements made by the UTI between June 1999 and June 2000 be tabled in the Parliament. His charges were energetically supported by the Opposition parties, including the Congress and the Left.
Vajpayee voiced his desire to quit office on Tuesday in view of his "inability to have the NDA function in a coherent and disciplined manner", the PTI noted.
However, according to Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan, the UTI issue didn't figure at the Tuesday morning meeting at which Vajpayee proposed to resign. "The UTI issue was not discussed at the meeting," he said, adding that nothing happened at the meeting which prompted Vajpayee to express resignation desire.
The PTI quoted sources within Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as saying that criticism by "a section of the NDA" over the government's handling of the recent India-Pakistan summit talks in Agra could also be one factor that had anguished the Prime Minister.
Despite two days of hard talks between Vajpayee and visiting Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, the two sides ended the summit without reaching an agreed joint statement.
The NDA, which consists of more than 20 parties including the BJP and Shiv Sena, came into power in October 1999 after winning the parliament majority in the national election. Vajpayee and his coalition government have since maintained a rather strong hold of power.
In This Section
|