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Wilting under mounting pressure, Union minister K Natwar
Singh, named by Volcker committee as a beneficiary of
illegal payoffs in Iraqi oil scam, hss decided to resign
from the cabinet.
Natwar Singh conveyed his decision to Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, who is in Moscow, over telephone, nearly
a month after he was divested of External Affairs Minister
and made a minister without portfolio in the wake of
the controversy.
Congress spokesman Anand Sharma said Natwar Singh told
the Prime Minister that he would personally hand over
his resignation to him on his return from Russia visit
on Wednesday.
After the telephonic conversation with the Prime Minister,
Natwar Singh met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi for an
hour and apprised her of his talks with Manmohan Singh.
Natwar Singh's decision to resign from the cabinet came
a day after he was removed from Congress' highest policy-making
forum the Steering Committee.
The decision capped weeks of rising discomfort level
for Natwar both in and outside Congress against the
backdrop of a determined opposition's paralysing Parliament
proceedings on the Volcker issue and several Congress
leaders and ministers making it clear to him that his
continunance in the government was becoming increasingly
untenable.
Senior Congress leader and Union Science and Technology
Kapil Sibal himself said Natwar Singh should take a
cue from his removal from the Steering Committee and
resign from the Union Cabinet on his own.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is away in Moscow
and was briefed about the Steering Committee's decision
to remove Singh, conveyed his stamp of approval to the
Committee's decision.
The comfort level of Singh dipped sharply after former
Indian Ambassador to Croatia Aniel Matherani's reported
allegation that the former External Affairs Minister
had taken oil vouchers from Saddam Hussein regime in
Iraq in 2001.
Things got more complicated for Singh in the party
after he came out with the statement firmly ruling out
his resignation in the wake of Matherani's reported
charge.
The statement did not go down well in Congress which
was facing growing embarassment ever since the Volcker
controversy broke out on 27th October with the coming
to light of the report by Paul Volcker, former head
of US Federal Reserve, who named Natwar and Congress
party as non-contractual beneficaries of the oil-for-food
programme.
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