NEW DELHI: “Many more heads will roll was the general reaction of Opposition leaders to the resignation of P .Chidambaram from the Narasimha Rao government recently.
The former Prime Minister V.P Singh said that many more colleagues of Rao may have to resign “but the magnitude of the scandal is such that the individuals don’t count.”
Asked to comment on Chidambaram’s exit the Bharatiya Janata Party President Dr. Murali Manohar Joshi said it only confirmed his earlier state ment that many pol and bureaucrats were involved in the securities scandal.
The CPI(M) leader Somnath Chatterjee said Chidambaram was apparently a competent minister but he had to suffer the consequences of committing the indiscretion of investing in companies of questionable integrity He said the Prime Minister must pursue and find out if any of the other ministers were involved “I hope it will be a lesson for the others” he added.
The Janata Dal leader George Fernandes said Chidambaram should have known what the Fair growth company was up to before investing in its shares in September. At that time the company’s shares had not ever been registered with the stock exchange He demanded that the government should come out with the information on the money deposited by the public sector units with the financial Companies and the amounts involved as it would provide the clues to the involvement of ministers
Fernandes said in the whole scam the Finance Ministry was the accused no.1 followed by the Reserve Bank of India the chairmen and managing directors of banks and the brokers.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 24, 1992
