Advani, Joshi offer to quit but I said don’t — PM

In his statement which followed soon, Vajpayee rejected the Opposition demand saying that neither the Constitution nor the law disqualified a minister from holding office merely because a chargesheet was filed by the police or formal charges were framed by the court.

“The question as to who should be in the Council of Ministers is one of Prime Ministerial discretion,” he said, assuring the House that the Ayodhya cases would proceed without any interference and everyone should wait for the judicial verdict.

Outside Parliament, Vajpayee told reporters that Advani and Joshi had offered to resign but “I turned them down.” Interestingly, Uma Bharati, Minister of State for Tourism, who has also been chargesheeted with Advani and Joshi in the demolition case, did not offer to quit. Instead, she attacked the Opposition for dredging up “an old issue” to “destabilise” the nation.

The feeling in political circles is that Joshi and Advani’s offer to quit is a signal to the Hindutva brigade that they were willing to give up their office for the party’s stand on the issue. This comes at a time when former UP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh has been criticizing Vajpayee for “dumping Ram in the garbage can for the sake of the chair.”

With the Opposition in no mood to relent, Vajpayee seems to have taken upon himself the responsibility of facing the attack in Parliament tomorrow. Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, Chief Whip of the Congress Parliamentary Party, termed the resignations as “pre-planned drama” to gain sympathy and to mislead the people.

He said the drama was watched by the entire Parliament as the two ministers wrote out their resignations and handed over to Vajpayee “who did not even look at them and kept in his pocket.”

Somnath Chatterjee of the CPM said the Prime Minister was setting “new norms” in public life by saying that there is nothing in the law or the Constitution that “disqualifies” a minister because he has been chargesheeted.

The confrontation between the Government and the Opposition in Parliament is likely to continue tomorrow. The CPP will meet tomorrow at 9.45 am to formulate its strategy in consultation with the other Opposition parties.

While the Deputy Leader of the CPP, Madhavrao Scindia will talk to the Left and the Samajwadi Party which adopted an anti-Congress posture in the Lok Sabha today, Dasmunshi will speak to the Nationalist Congress Party, RJD and others. Soon after the PM’s reply, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi said her party was dissatisfied with the Government’s “untenable position.”

Some of the BJP’s alliance partners — the TDP, Trinamool Congress and even the Samata Party — defended the Government. But it was clear that they were for the “forget-and-forgive” line. They said that the law should be allowed to take its course without “creating a political ruckus after 20 months.”