Modi can't ask Swaraj, CMs to step down: Manish Tewari

Jaipur, Aug 6: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "old track record" of Godhra riots is preventing him from asking his junior colleagues, who are facing corruption charges, to step down, former Union Minister Manish Tewari charged here today.

Tewari, while holding the Modi government responsible for current stalemate in Parliament, said that his party was raising a legitimate demand of resignations of leaders in question, including External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Chief Ministers of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

"Prime Minister cannot ask the Ministers and chief ministers to step down even if he wants to...because of his old track record of the Godhra riots," Tewari told reporters here.

"Be it the External Affairs Minister, the Rajasthan CM or the Madhya Pradesh CM...If Modi asks them to resign, they will say that when you (Modi) were accused of the riots when you were the CM, we stood by you and now when we are being accused, you are asking us to resign so your (Modi's) resignation should come first," he said.

The former Union minister claimed that Swaraj wrote to the British government saying that the Indian government would have no objection if Lalit Modi (the ex-IPL commissioner) is allowed to move out of country. "Before the present NDA government, the UPA government had written (to UK) that any such help to Lalit Modi would adversely affect the India-Britain relations," the Congress leader said.

Tewari also demanded that communication between the then External Affairs minister P Chidambaram and UK government over this issue should be brought in public domain. On Swaraj's statement on the Lalit Modi row that she was helping a cancer patient, Tiwari asked ,"why she did not feel similar humanitarian affection for other Indians stuck in UK?"

When asked about the allegation on Congress leader and former chief minister of Goa Digambar Kamat, who is the main accused in bribery scandal, Tewari alleged that investigations are biased and have been taken up to meet the end objectives.

"Our leaders have been framed. BJP government in Goa acts in a vindictive manner. Investigations in Goa which is a BJP ruled state, are usually not transparent," he added.

PTI