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The DDCA scam issue continued to rock both Houses of Parliament with the Rajya Sabha adjourning till noon and Lok Sabha witnessing repeated obstructions here on Tuesday. The Congress members trooped to the Well of the House demanding the resignation of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for his alleged involvement in the scam.
Taking cue from a comment reportedly made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a BJP MPs’ meeting that Jaitley would come clean just as BJP leader LK Advani did in the Hawala scam of the 1990s, the Opposition asked the Finance Minister to put in his papers as the BJP patriarch had done then.
“Today I heard that the Prime Minister said that Jaitley will come out of this like LK Advani in the Jain Hawala case. I will remind Jaitley that Advani had then resigned and had not come back till he got a clean chit from the Supreme Court,” Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters. “So the Prime Minister seems to be telling Jaitley that he should not continue as Finance Minister till he gets cleared,” he said, adding that Jaitley has no right to continue as Minister.
The Left parties too stepped up their offensive. “By drawing a parallel with Advani, the PM is hinting to Jaitley that he should resign, get himself cleared and come back. I read it as a signal,” CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said.
The Congress said in a statement that established principle of probity in public life and also accountability of every individual occupying a public office warranted that Jaitley steps down as Finance Minister to facilitate a fair and impartial probe. Quoting BJP MP Kirti Azad’s charges against Jaitley, the party said none of the BJP’s leaders had come to Jaitley’s help. “Jaitley has in the past been a crusader for accountability and has repeatedly invoked the dictum that ‘Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion’. The recent developments and revelations, therefore, make it imperative that he lives by the dictum and does not make untenable arguments that this case be treated as an exception to the established principles of accountability in public life,” the statement added.
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