War room leak: BJP demands Pranab's resignation

New Delhi, Apr 7 (UNI) The Bharatiya Janata Party today demanded the immediate resignation of Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee following the arrest of five persons, including three former Naval officers, in the war room leak case.

The party accused the Defence Minister of misleading Parliament and said that after the arrest of five persons by the CBI in the case, Mr Mukherjee had no moral authority to continue in the government.

Addressing newspersons, party spokesman Prakash Javadekar said the BJP had failed to understand why the CBI had not yet arrested the main accused Abishek Verma, son of a Congress leader, and Ravishankaran, a kin of Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash. He hoped the CBI would be impartial in its inquiry.

He said the BJP would also like to know into whose Swiss bank account the amount of Rs 2,500 crore, withdrawn from the account of Abhishek Verma, the alleged middleman in the scorpene deal, was transferred.

Besides, the Naval authorities in an affidavit to the Delhi High Court, had also talked about the ''foreign hand'' in the war-room leak. The BJP would like to know who these foreign hands were, Mr Javadekar said.

The BJP, he said, was of the view there was a direct link between the submarine deal and war-room leak and emphasised on a thorough inquiry into it. The party had suspicions that the government would try to subvert the whole issue, instead of bringing out the truth, for ulterior motives, Mr Javadekar added.

UNI KAS LR RN1643