The role of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in both the 2G scam and the allocation of the KG Basin gas contracts is “questionable,” Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said here on Sunday.
He said Dr. Singh must “own responsibility” for heading the “most corrupt regime in the country since Independence.”
“It is not a question of honesty or dishonesty. When you hold high public office what happens under your watch, you have to take responsibility for it…Under you all this corruption is taking place. We are asking who takes responsibility for this,” Mr. Karat said, when asked whether the party was questioning the personal integrity of the Prime Minister.
Speaking to journalists after a two-day meeting of the Central Committee of the CPI(M), Mr. Karat also emphasised the party's stand on the Lokpal Bill that “the Prime Minister should definitely come under the purview of the Lokpal.”
Mr. Karat also called for the resignation of Delhi's Chief Minister Sheila Dixit who has been implicated in the Common Wealth Games scam in the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report.
“The Delhi government has been indicted in the CAG report and the Chief Minister Ms. Sheila Dixit has been directly implicated. Normally we would expect such people who hold high public office to step down till their names are cleared,” he said.
Mr. Karat said the UPA government “has become synonymous with high level corruption” and corruption has grown “exponentially” since the times of Rajiv Gandhi.
Asked whether the CPI(M) would call for the resignation of the Prime Minister, he said, “the story is not over yet.”
Mr. Karat said both the 2G spectrum and the KG Basin gas contracts cases were unfolding. “From the documents that are available in the 2G spectrum case, the Prime Minister's role from 2007 to 2012 can be ascertained,” he said.
In the political system of the country the Prime Minster is responsible for the actions of his Cabinet, he added.
Decision for combined Bill supported
The CPI(M) supported the Centre's decision for a combined Bill on land acquisition and rehabilitation but would deliberate on its stand once the actual Bill was made public, Mr. Karat said.
“It [the proposed Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation & Resettlement Bill] should be a comprehensive Bill, which can protect the interests of the farmers and look after various other aspects,” Mr. Karat told journalists.
“The draft of the Bill put on the website is different from the earlier version given by the National Advisory Committee (NAC). We will have to wait and see exactly what the government is thinking. The only thing we can say right now is that the decision to combine the two Bills is correct,” he said.
Deliberations on the proposed Bill were held in the course of the two-day meeting of the Central Committee.
On the issue of the Food Security Bill, Mr. Karat questioned whether “it is helping food security or curtailing it?”
Pointing out that what had emerged from the discussions of the Group of Ministers was that like the targeted Public Distribution System, the Bill would restrict food security to a section of the people, Mr. Karat said that his party would sustain its campaign for a better law.
