Dismissed Uttar Pradesh Power Minister Naresh Agarwal and founder of the Loktantrik Congress Party, from which he was expelled on August 11, is willing to face any probe into the charges of corruption levelled against him by state Chief Minister Rajnath Singh.

Perched in the LCP headquarters in Lucknow and crowded by his supporters -- who intermittently went into euphoric outbursts of "Naresh Agarwal zindabad; Naresh tum sangharsh karo, hum tumhare saath hain" he spoke to Sharat Pradhan.

I was not dishonest until I remained with the government, now suddenly I am being branded as corrupt and dishonest.

Let the chief minister order any inquiry against me. Let him probe my assets, it does not bother me. The assets of other ministers including Bharatiya Janata Party's own, should also to be probed.

If I were corrupt, then what was Rajnath Singh doing for the last 10 months since he took over as chief minister? Sure enough, whatever the chief minister was contemplating against me and the way he was condemning the energy department was out of sheer vindictiveness and nothing else. Otherwise, why should he be turning a blind eye to the rampant corruption in other ministries?

What prompted the chief minister to hush up the inquiry report of the Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) Ambedkar Park scam, in which two senior BJP ministers were directly indicted?

Then there was a minister who was found to be associated with a notorious bandit Dadua, who carries a reward of Rs 2 lakhs on his head.

At the party's last state executive meet in Saharanpur, the BJP leadership had resolved to weed out corrupt ministers, let the chief minister come out with what action he has taken so far against tainted ministers.

If the chief minister was really sincere about building a clean image for himself, let him declare his views about all other ministers, so that at least it would be clear as to who all was he planning to throw out of the government.

Dissolution of the state assembly and imposition of President's rule is the need of the hour. That is the only way to prevent horse-trading. I have already urged state Governor Dr Vishnu Kant Shastri to heed to our demand.

Basically we (Rajnath Singh) had strong differences over the date of the election. While I had been insisting that the state assembly poll be held before the five-year term expires in October, the chief minister refused to go for an election before March 2002. His argument was that since the state assembly had remained in suspended animation for the first six months, the five-year term would end only in March 2002.

He (Rajnath Singh) was hatching a gameplan to snatch six extra months of power, as a caretaker chief minister, even if the assembly were to be dissolved. This is what led to a heated argument with him and eventually led to my ouster from the cabinet.

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