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Saturday, Aug 05, 2006

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National

Natwar a scapegoat: Advani

Neena Vyas

"The Government has managed to exonerate the Congress party"

— Photo: V. Sudershan

CRITICISES CONGRESS: Leader of the Opposition L. K. Advani addressing a press conference on the Justice Pathak Committee report in New Delhi on Friday.

NEW DELHI: Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani on Friday described the former External Affairs Minister, Natwar Singh indicted by the Pathak Inquiry Authority as a "scapegoat," while levelling the charge that "the Government has managed to exonerate the Congress party."

His view was that the Volcker report on the United Nations oil-for-food programme run during the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq mentioned both Mr. Singh and the Congress party as "non-contractual beneficiaries," Mr. Advani said. The newspapers were now saying that the Pathak inquiry had exonerated the Congress party.

Demanding that the Government make a statement on the leakage of report issue to Parliament on Monday, he said: "The report was not presented to Parliament. It was selectively leaked that the Congress party was not guilty."

Mr. Advani was asked whether he was now saying that Mr. Singh was innocent and had been made a "scapegoat" although it was the BJP that had demanded his resignation as Minister. His answer was that scapegoat did not mean that a person was innocent.

He declared that his NDA Government was not guilty of not holding an inquiry into the Bangaru Laxman case (Mr. Laxman as BJP president allegedly received Rs. 1 lakh in cash from journalists posing as arms dealers in a sting operation), as Mr. Laxman resigned from the position. He said the Enforcement Directorate should have questioned Sonia Gandhi as she was the Congress president and the Congress as was mentioned in the Volcker report.

He suggested that Andaleeb Sehgal may have taken the money in commissions "on behalf of Congress."

He asked: "Did not Mr. Natwar Singh as head of a delegation to Iraq carry a letter from Ms. Gandhi to the then President Saddam Hussein? What was that letter? We would like to see it."

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