Opposition will not remain a mute spectator, BJP tells PM

The Bharatiya Janata Party Thursday took serious objection to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement describing the opposition's protest over the Iraqi Oil-for-Food scam as 'drama'.

• Volcker Report

"It does not behove of a prime minister to criticise the opposition in this manner," Bharatiya Janata Party Parliamentary party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra said, wondering if the prime minister was working at the diktats of somebody.

Talking to newspersons, the BJP leader described Dr Singh as incompetent and said, "Instead of making a statement clarifying the allegations made in the Volcker report and seeking former external affairs minister Natwar Singh's resignation in the first place, the prime minister chose to criticise the opposition for raising the issue in Parliament." He said it was Dr Singh who took almost 40 days to decide on Natwar Singh, clearly named along with the Congress as one of the non-contractual beneficiaries.

"The prime minister first gave a clean chit to Natwar Singh, then announced that he need not resign. Later, he stripped Natwar Singh of the portfolio. Thereafter he was removed from the party's steering committee, forcing him to step down from the government.

"All this showed the prime minister's indecisiveness and incompetence," Malhotra said.

The spokesman said the prime minister ought to explain to the nation why he delayed action for almost 40 days. It was surprising that he described the opposition protests in both the Houses of Parliament demanding the Union Minister's resignation as nautanki, he added.

He said the prime minister seemed to be behaving like the "shouting brigade" of the Congress in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha where the opposition voice was often coerced by these brigades.

Citing a media report, the BJP leader said the Enforcement Directorate had traced three accounts -- one each in Swiss account, Jordan and Luxembourg banks -- which amounted to Rs 528 crore earned through the sale of crude oil vouchers received by the Congress and Natwar Singh in the Iraq oil scam.

The ED submitted its report, he said and demanded that the government must confirm or reject the report.

"The opposition will not remain a mute spectator. The Congress is fully involved in the scam and its president Sonia Gandhi must resign," Malhotra said, adding that the Volcker issue is not closed.