BJP seeks A K Antony's resignation

Mar 30, 2012 |

New Delhi

Tags:

BJP today demanded Defence Minister A K Antony's resignation, upping the ante against Government over the controversy surrounding Army Chief's allegation that he was offered bribe for clearance of Tatra truck contracts.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour in Rajya Sabha, Prakash Javadekar (BJP) questioned whether the minister was patronising corruption as no action has been taken against anybody though a probe was ordered two years back.

He rejected Antony's contention that he did not act on the Army Chief's information on bribe offer in absence of any written complaint and claimed that a written complaint did exist.

"If the probe in Tatra trucks is continuing from 2009 to 2011, if it is not completed in two years, then this government and this Defence Minister are trying to cover up corruption. If you are patronising corruption, you have no right to remain in power. The Defence Minister should resign," Javadekar said.

The BJP leader told the House that Union Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had written a letter to the Defence Minister two years back demanding a probe into the matter. Azad was not in the House.

He said the defence ministry had even informed Azad that the probe was going on. He demanded that the contents of the findings should be made public.

Javadekar also demanded to know what action was taken into the matter and who were found guilty.

Javadekar also suggested that Congress President Sonia Gandhi seemed to be aware of the allegation as the letter by Azad to Antony contained her reference.

The BJP leader also said that the issue was raised by "Congress leader Hanumanthappa".

Earlier a media report had it that it was D Hanumanthappa, president of the Karnataka wing of All India Federation of SC/ST/Backward Class and Minority Employees Welfare Association, who had written to Gandhi in 2009 about the issue.

Hanumanthappa had reportedly alleged that VRS Natarajan (BEML CMD) placed an order worth Rs 6,000 crore for Tatra trucks from a UK agent and not from the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) in violation of defence procurement guidelines.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/138600" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-92f69cea1d2108d48bbbe3535c5ede8b" value="form-92f69cea1d2108d48bbbe3535c5ede8b" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80831888" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>