Sonia's letter to PM, BJP seeks PM resignation

New Delhi, May 10: The Bharatiya Janata Party today said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should resign from the Government following the manner he had been 'humiliated' by Congress President Sonia Gandhi on the issue of Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with ASEAN countries. Talking to newspersons, BJP Parliamentary Party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra said Mrs Gandhi had humiliated the Prime Minister by writing a letter to him publicly. ''If he has any self-respect, Dr Singh should resign,'' he added.

Mr Malhotra said that the Congress had taken the credit for signing the FTA but now Mrs Gandhi had written to Dr Singh that it was detrimental to the interests of farmers, 'thus humiliating the Prime Minister.' He said that ever since the UPA Government had come to power at the Centre, about 8,000 farmers had committed suicides and most of them had occurred in the Congress-ruled states which included Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Mr Malhotra said the BJP had decided to give notice for a privilege motion against the Government, holding that Parliament had been misled by the Government, which had not given it all the facts about the Indo-US Nuclear deal. ''There is a lot of difference between what Prime Minister has stated in Parliament and the actual nuclear deal,'' he said.

Besides the party had given notice for discussion on the issue of import of wheat and sealing drive in Delhi, he said, adding the party had identified 46 issues which it would be raising during the session.

UNI