By IANS
New Delhi : Fresh from her return from Japan amid crisis over the government affidavit in the Supreme Court negating Lord Ram’s existence, Tourism and Culture Minister Ambika Soni Saturday said she was ready to resign.
“I have not felt the need for resigning so far but will do so if the cabinet wants,” Soni, in the eye of the storm, told reporters.
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) under her ministry had filed the affidavit in the Supreme Court on the Ram Sethu or Adam’s Bridge off the Tamil Nadu coast in which it questioned the existence of Hindu god Ram.
“Let me repeat if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi feels that I am culpable, I will resign,” said Soni.
She had a 10-minute meeting with Gandhi on her return and briefed her on the ongoing inquiry initiated by her ministry.
Clearly under pressure, Soni clarified that ASI should not be held solely responsible for the controversial affidavit, hinting that part of the blame lay elsewhere.
“We had cut some portions of the affidavit but the final one that was submitted in the court had not omitted these parts,” Soni explained, indicating that the Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramanyam was also accountable.
Following the uproar, ASI’s Director General Anshu Vaishya lost no time and suspended director (administration) Chandrasekhar and assistant director (monuments) V. Bakshi. This was after getting permission from Soni, who returned from Japan Friday evening.
When asked whether the two ASI officials had been made scapegoats in the whole controversy, the minister retorted, “In my ministry no one will be made a scapegoat.
“The ASI officials have been suspended and an enquiry has been ordered into the matter. The guilty will be punished but let me confirm that the suspended officers will certainly get a chance to defend themselves,” she added.
Asked to comment on Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh’s statement that he would have resigned if he had been the culture minister, Soni pithily remarked, “I am not Jairam Ramesh.”
Responding to a Supreme Court query following a petition on the Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project (SSCP), the government had Wednesday submitted the affidavit.
Soon after it was filed, opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its affiliate Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) came down heavily on the government for hurting Hindu sentiments, forcing it to withdraw its original affidavit and apologising for its controversial remarks.
The Rs.24 billion Sethusamudram project aims to provide a shorter navigational sea route around India’s southern peninsula by dredging the peak of the bridge, believed to be built by Lord Ram to rescue his wife Sita from demon king Ravan of then Lanka, now Sri Lanka.