Union home minister P. Chidambaram faced loud demands from the BJP and AIADMK for his dismissal after the Madras high court on Thursday declined to dismiss a petition challenging his 2009 election to the Lok Sabha, but the message from the Centre was clear: The government and the Congress high command would not drop him under Opposition pressure.
In fact, law minister Salman Khurshid on Thursday ridiculed the BJP for demanding Mr Chidambaram’s resignation.
“Should the home minister get a resignation printed because they demand it on a daily basis or should he give it on the Internet? BJP wakes up in the morning and says that the home minister should resign. God knows how many times the home minister would have resigned had he accepted whatever the BJP said,” he told reporters.
Chidambaram, a member of he Congress core group, is seen as the PM’s confidant and one of the Centre’s crisis managers. Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh, who had radical differences with Chidambaram on certain issues, also backed him.
“What case has he lost? It’s an election petition. He has not lost a case which has anything to do with his working as the home minister,” Singh said.
Noting that elections can only be challenged through an election petition, Khurshid said media reports were giving the impression that it was a criminal trial, which was not the case.