The Hindu : National : Manmohan enacted drama: Malhotra

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Friday, Dec 09, 2005

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National

Manmohan enacted drama: Malhotra

Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI : It was the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who enacted a political drama on the Volcker issue, not the Bharatiya Janata Party, deputy leader of the party in the Lok Sabha, V.K. Malhotra, alleged on Thursday.

He was reacting to reports on comments made by the Prime Minister on the main Opposition party. Mr. Malhotra pointed out that the Government had changed its position over the last 40 days from giving a clean chit to former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh to finally dropping him from the Cabinet and an important position on the steering committee of the Congress.

Newspaper reports

Mr. Malhotra distributed photocopies of newspaper reports alleging that the Enforcement Directorate had traced Rs.528 crores of the oil voucher money stashed away in some Jordan banks. But when asked about other news magazine reports alleging that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's "close relative" had made oil deals with Saddam's Iraqi government, his brief answer was, "Let the Government investigate."

The BJP continued to articulate its stand that Mr. Natwar Singh was a scapegoat and that it was the Congress under Sonia Gandhi who had made the money in the oil deals.

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