Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader M Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday criticised Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for backing ministers involved in the 2G scam and demanded the resignation of Union home minister P Chidambaram, who was the country's finance minister then.
Addressing mediapersons on the sideline of a blood donation camp in New Delhi, Naidu said: "On the basis of the facts that are coming to light, the home minister should resign. The reason is they do whatever the prime minister says. The prime minister is supporting every minister and backing them."
"Such a big scam has taken place so it is natural that after the letter that came out from the finance ministry the home minister does not have the moral right to hold the position anymore," he added.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had on Saturday denied the allegations by the BJP that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government was shielding Home Minister Chidambaram for his alleged involvement in the 2G spectrum scandal.
"The business of the opposition is to oppose the government in power. So, this is nothing unusual," Dr. Singh said on the sidelines of the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.
Significantly, a letter from the Union finance ministry to the Prime Minister's Office had noted that the 2G spectrum allocations were done with the knowledge of the then finance minister, Chidambaram.
The 14-page note addressed to the prime minister, suggested that the 2G spectrum allocations could have been auctioned with concurrence of the then finance minister, Chidambaram, in 2008.
The document, which was apparently shown to Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and accessed by a person under the Right to Information Act, was drafted by a deputy secretary in the ministry and sent to the PMO earlier this year in March.
Former Telecom Minister A Raja was sacked in November last year after being charged with giving away telecom licences in 2008 for a pittance at meagre 2001 rates in the CAG report. He was later arrested on charges of misuse of ministerial office and criminal misconduct.
