New Delhi, July 23 (ANI): The Congress Party on Thursday accused Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of attempting to mislead the nation that the opposition has not asked for the resignation of tainted ministers and alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was aware of the help provided to former IPL chief Lalit Modi by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.
“The opposition remains very firm on its demand for fixing of the accountability and taking up action and that’s why our notices have been very clear. There is a deliberate distortion, misrepresentation and a clear calculated attempt on the part of the Leader of the House, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, to misinform and mislead that the opposition has not asked for resignation. The opposition has asked for resignation from day one that is on record of the House proceedings,” Sharma told the media here.
“The proceedings of Tuesday, the proceedings of Wednesday have recorded our demand for resignations. Under the rules of both the Houses, the wording of the Motion has to be very clear. There is no rule in the rule book that you can use the word resignation in the motion but the words used are very clear that the Prime Minister responds to the demand to fix accountability and take action. This means that it is an open and shut case,” he added.
Sharma, who is the Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, further said that the Congress Party refuses to accept that Prime Minister Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah were not aware of the assistance provided to Lalit Modi.
“In case of External Affairs Minister, by her own confession, by the revelations during an inquiry in the UK that she had in a clandestine manner approached the government of that country, the chairman of the Home Committee, to give travel documents of that country to a person wanted by law in India and kept the Foreign Secretary in dark, the High Commissioner of India in UK in dark, kept the entire establishment in dark and Prime Minister Modi was aware of this,” he added.
The Lok Sabha has been adjourned for the day and the Rajya Sabha till 2 p.m. on the Lalit Modi episode and Vyapam scam. Earlier, both the Houses witnessed brief adjournments over the issue amidst opposition uproar. This is for the third consecutive day that the logjam between the opposition and the government continued. (ANI)