By IANS,
New Delhi : Sharpening its attack on the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tuesday demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sack Home Minister P. Chidambaram for his alleged involvement in the 2G scam.
“We demand Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should immediately remove Home Minister P. Chidambaram from the cabinet without waiting for a probe into his role in the 2G scam,” said BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman.
The BJP spokesperson said the party wanted to know why Chidambaram as finance minister in 2008 changed the allocation of 2G spectrum to auction route, but in 2007 gave the spectrum away at 2001 prices and did not stop the loss to the exchequer.
“If Chidambaram wanted to stop the loss of revenue to the government, he could have taken action,” said Sitharaman.
She said the recent finance ministry note stating that Chidambaram could have stopped the 2G spectrum scam in 2008, has raised these questions and demanded the Congress answer them.
The prime minister, who is returning to New Delhi Tuesday night, and Congress president Sonia Gandhi are scheduled to meet separately with ministers and party leaders Wednesday in an attempt to resolve the matter.
Congress sources said Gandhi, recuperating after a surgery Aug 4, was making efforts to defuse the situation that has the potential to turn into another crisis for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.