NEW DELHI: In a fresh bid to embarrass Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao in Parliament, the Bharatiya Janata Party will now demand his resignation following the Supreme Court’s directive that the ‘CBl refrain from seeking instructions from the Prime Minister or his office. The party leaders, including Atal Behari Vajpayee, LK. Advani, and Murli Manohar Joshi, reportedly held. A meeting March 4, with the RSS brass to consider proposals for formulating the party’s strategy on the floor of the House. This follows the Party’s failure to seek Mr, Rao’s resignation on alleged payoffs to four JMM MPs for buying their support to save the government in 1993.
Shailendra Mahato, BJP MP who formerly belonged to JMM, recently retraced his statement in Parliament, Saying the Prime Minister was not involved in the payoffs.
According to party insiders, the BJP now plans to demand the Prime Minister’s resignation in the wake of Supreme Court’s directive that the CBI should not take any more orders or instructions from Mr. Rao or any other authority in the PMO in the Hawala case. The party feels that the ‘Supreme Court’s observations amount to expressing “no confidence” in the Prime Minister under whose charge the CBI functions.
Deputy leader of BJP in the Lok ‘Sabha Jaswant Singh told ‘newspersons that the parliamentary party meeting would decide on how to take up the hawala scandal in the Lok Sabha to its logical conclusion before the completion of the debate ‘on that day.
‘The party sources hinted that its scope of discussion on the hawala issue” and was looking for a face-saving device on the privilege motion. ‘The privilege motion had said: “That this House express its dissatisfaction at the government’s failure to answer charges related to “hawala case’ and to allegations about illegal payoffs to some members of parliament.” The thrust of the motion was virtually directed against the Prime Minister.
Mr, Singh told newspersons that the hawala issue was a symptom of lack of probity in public life and accountability of the executive to the legislature, He said the observations of the Supreme Court that the CBI should not take instructions from any authority in the hawala case “virtually makes good” the BJP stand of the involvement of the Prime Minister, He said, “The Supreme Court’s observations amounted to an implicit confirmation that in the matter of charges alleged by S.K. Jain, prime accused in the hawala case, further inquiry should be conducted against the Prime Minister.” The party, he said, would evolve a strategy and expose the Prime Minister for allegedly receiving Rs3.5 crore hawala money.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 6, 1996
