NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party general secretary Arun Jaitley on Tuesday charged the United Progressive Alliance Government with trying to do a "cover-up job" to prevent the truth from coming out about "involvement" of the former External Affairs Minister, Natwar Singh, and the Congress in the oil-for-food programme.

He said that if the terms of reference of the judicial committee appointed to probe the matter were "Hamdan-centric," focused only on the firm owned by Andaleeb Sehgal, it would be clear that the Government was not interested in getting to the root of the issue related to Mr. Singh and the Congress. "Unless the Government asks the right questions, it cannot get the right answers and, perhaps, the Government is not interested in asking the right questions."

Mr. Jaitley cited several indications of the Government's "lack of will" to get to the bottom of the story: the Prime Minister had virtually given a "clean chit" to Mr. Natwar Singh; the fact that Mr. Singh had been retained as a Cabinet Minister even though without portfolio; the probe committee did not have the legal authority to get the document; and, finally, no case had been registered against those named as "non-contractual beneficiaries" in the Volcker Committee report.

`Register cases'

Now that Mr. Singh is no longer the External Affairs Minister, the BJP has focussed its demand on his being dropped from the Cabinet and on registration of criminal cases against those "named and unnamed" in the Volcker Report. The "unnamed" was explained by a party functionary as a legalese that is often used to leave room for the investigative agency to add names that may come up later during the investigation.

Mr. Jaitley came down heavily on the Left parties, saying that the Left had "lost the high moral ground" it had tried to occupy, first as a result of the Mitrokhin papers and now because it tried to defend and protect Mr. Natwar Singh.

The Left's "clever-by-half" approach, "enjoying proximity to power" while "trying to also occupy the Opposition space," had come apart, he claimed.

He was asked how the BJP could demand the registration of criminal cases on the basis of the Volcker Committee Report when his party had failed to file a police report in the case of its former party president Bangaru Laxman, who was caught on camera allegedly accepting cash from sting reporters posing as arms dealers.

Also, no case was filed by the National Democratic Alliance Government against the then Defence Minister, George Fernandes, although his former party president, Jaya Jaitly, was also caught on camera asking "arms dealers" to give donations to the party directly to the treasurer.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail