The Hindu : Congress demands Sinha's resignation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 23, 2003

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National

Congress demands Sinha's resignation

By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi Dec. 22. The Congress in the Lok Sabha today demanded the resignation of the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, to take full responsibility for the stock market scam during his tenure as Finance Minister. Citing a similar demand made by the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, when he was the Leader of the Opposition, against the former Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh, the Congress leader, Mani Shankar Aiyar, today urged Mr. Sinha to take on responsibility for the scam.

Initiating the debate on the Government's Action Taken Report on the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the stock market scam, Mr. Aiyar launched an attack against the Government. Apart from Mr. Sinha's resignation, he also sought "repentance" from the regulator, the Department of Company Affairs, and the submission of another ATR taking on responsibility for failures of governance.

He said the JPC report raised "issues of constitutional jurisprudence, parliamentary propriety and political morality" and went on to argue that these issues were dealt with by Mr. Vajpayee in his intervention in the debate on the 1992 JPC report as the Leader of the Opposition. At the time, he recalled, Dr. Manmohan Singh had accepted full responsibility for the securities scam in the House and declared that he was prepared to accept any punishment given by it.

In contrast, he said that in response to a similar demand by the Opposition after the latest stock market scam, Mr. Sinha declined to resign from his post. He asked Mr. Vajpayee who was present in the House to explain the reason for the differing standards for Dr. Manmohan Singh as against his Ministers.

He also highlighted the fact that two of the "epicentres" of the scam were cooperative banks in Lucknow and Gandhinagar, the constituencies of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani. Here too, he highlighted the need for MPs to take responsibility for activities in their constituencies.

Mr. Aiyar who was not satisfied with the ATR pointed out that it actually denied that there was any scam at all while stating that there were no "systemic weaknesses." He criticised the casual rejection of the essential finding of the unanimous JPC report. In this context, he referred to the rejection of the first ATR given by the Narasimha Rao Government by Mr. Advani in July 1994 and demanded adherence by the present Government to these views.

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