Title - The dominoes are falling: Bansal, Ashwani Kumar resign

New Delhi: Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and Law Minister Ashwani Kumar were on Friday night forced to resign by the Congress and the Prime Minister as the government’s image continued to take a severe battering over allegations of corruption and interference with graft probe. On a day of dramatic developments, Congress president Sonia Gandhi met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and decided that both the Ministers should be asked to put in their papers to contain any further damage to the government.“Yes, I have resigned,” said 64-year-old Bansal emerging from a meeting with the Prime Minister, a week after his nephew was arrested for allegedly accepting Rs 90 lakh from a Railway Board member for a promise of promotion.Soon after, Law Minister Ashwani Kumar, who is under attack for vetting  the CBI report in the probe into coal block allocation scam, also met the Prime Minister and submitted his resignation.

The PMO’s spokesman said the two Ministers’ resignations were being forwarded to President Pranab Mukherjee.

Manmohan Singh and Ashwani Kumar. AFP
In his resignation letter, Bansal maintained that he was not aware that his nephew Vijay Singla was in contact with Railway Board Member Mahesh Kumar, and yet he felt it was only proper to step down. He said he looked  forward to an expeditious investigation into the allegations.

Ashwani Kumar, on the other hand, said that he was resigning to put an end to “unnecessary controversy” and “public perception of any wrongdoing”. He maintained that the Supreme Court had not passed any strictures against him.

The government is expected to come out with a detailed statement on the issue on Saturday.

The Congress, which initially decided to weather the storm over Bansal and Kumar, acted to contain any further damage as more and more damning reports surfaced.

Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh took the decision as there was growing unease in the party that the continuance of the two ministers was eroding the credibility of the government, which has been battling scams and controversies for the last three years.

The government, which suffered a severe blow when the Railway Board scam surfaced, was further embarrassed with more media reports emerging about  Bansal’s relatives benefiting from a public sector bank by way of loans when he was Minister of State of Finance.

A clear hint about action against Bansal and Kumar came earlier on Friday when Congress spokesman Bhakt Charan Das said the party would not spare anybody “mired” in corruption or manipulation.

The exit of Bansal and Kumar is expected to trigger a reshuffle in the Council of Ministers. Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh will meet on Sunday to finalise details of the reshuffle, which is expected next week.

The BJP on Friday stepped up its pressure on the government by demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the resignations of Bansal and Ashwani, saying that “consequences should follow.”

“There is no logic in the Prime Minister’s continuance. Having decided to drop the Law Minister who was protecting the Prime Minister,  the consequences should follow. The consequence is that the Prime Minister must resign now,” BJP leader LK Advani told PTI.

Describing the resignation of Bansal and Ashwani Kumar as a step taken “too late”, the BJP charged the government with “wasting” precious time of Parliament by not agreeing to its demand earlier and allowing it to function. The party hoped the probe into the railway bribery scam would now go in the right direction and truth would come out.

“This is a step taken too late. Had the Prime Minister and Congress agreed to the BJP’s demand earlier, they could have saved the precious time of Parliament,” BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said.

“The resignation of the two Ministers shows that our demand for their resignation was justified and the government was unnecessarily adamant. If they had accepted our demand for their resignations earlier, the Parliament session could have gone on on,” Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj said on Twitter.