Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Shukla has criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for frequently demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.
Talking to media here yesterday, Shukla said that BJP has demanded resignation from the Prime Minister 180 times since 2004.
“If they were obliged then the country by now could have seen 180 Prime Ministers in just nine years,” he added.
He further said that the BJP”s only aim is to disrupt the Parliament proceedings and the party should learn from former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who became popular in the country because of his speeches instead of creating ruckus in the House. Asserting that the Prime Minister has no moral right to continue, senior BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday said the opposition party will start a “Jail Bharo Andolan” from May 27 to June 3 against the Congress-led UPA Government.
“The BJP has decided to take up a nationwide campaign about the UPA Government failure and also explain to the people about the non-functioning of parliament, non-functioning of the government, confrontation between the government and the opposition and also various scam and scandal of the UPA Government,” Naidu told media here.
“We will protest, for the Prime Minister”s resignation. Our demand is that the UPA Government should go,” he said.
On Saturday, BJP President Rajnath Singh had asked Manmohan Singh to step down from his post following the resignations of his two ””tainted”” ministers Pawan Kumar Bansal and Ashwani Kumar.
“I would appeal to the Prime Minister with all humility that you introspect and decide what should be done so that there is a trust in the people with regard to the country””s political system. I believe that if the Prime Minister does the introspection with all sincerity, then there is no other option left rather than tendering the resignation paper,” Singh told mediapersons at a press conference here.
In a swift and decisive move, the Congress Party dropped both Ashwani Kumar and Pawan Kumar Bansal from the Union Cabinet in view of the charges of corruption and impropriety surrounding the duo.
The decision in this regard came soon after Sonia Gandhi met the Prime Minister and it was decided that both the ministers should be asked to put in their papers to contain any further damage to the UPA Government.
The government was finding to difficult to defend Ashwani Kumar after the Supreme Court”s scathing remarks over changing the CBI status report in the coal scam.
Meanwhile, Bansal”s ouster from the Cabinet became inevitable after it became clear that the CBI was all set to question him following the arrest of his nephew Vijay Singla in the cash-for-job scam.
The arrest of Singla and media revelations about his family”s business transactions and bank loans had caused the government major embarrassment. (ANI)