Congress parries BJP demand for PM's resignation

New Delhi: Challenging the BJP head-on, Congress today dismissed the main opposition party’s demand for resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the 2G issue, saying that he is a man of “honesty, integrity and rectitude”. “If at all anyone raised questions about the processes on the 2G issue, it was the Prime Minister,” Congress spokesman Manish Tewari told reporters in the National Capital.[caption id=“attachment_47892” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Reuters”]  [/caption] He was replying to a volley of questions on former telecom minister A Raja’s claims in a Delhi court that the issue of sale of equity by spectrum licences was discussed with Singh and the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram and the BJP demanding the Prime Minister’s resignation. Tewari’s refrain was Raja’s claims in a Delhi court were statements of an “accused trying to defend himself at the time of framing of charges”. “The allegations are made not by a member of the Council of Ministers but by an accused,” he said, adding that it would be a “very sad day for Indian democracy if excessive and unnecessary reliance is given to a statements by an accused who is making a point”. On the BJP demand for resignation of the Prime Minister, Tewari said: “To denigrate him is like spitting at the sun.” Initially, Tewari said no running commentary is given on proceedings in court. He did not agree to a questioner that an angry DMK, which had withdrawn two ministers—Raja and Dayanidhi Maran from the UPA government—was getting back at the Congress through Raja. Tewari sought to ridicule BJP President Nitin Gadkari’s claims on spectrum policy formulated by the NDA government, saying he (Gadkari) needed to know the history of the telecom ministry. He said the migration policy initiated by the NDA government led by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had led to a loss of Rs 43,000 crore to the exchequer, which has risen to Rs 1.73 lakh crore. PTI