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| Cong. distancing itself from Natwar Singh | | | SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI, AUG. 6: Union Minister of State for Home, Sriprakash Jaiswal, is the first Congress leader to directly target Natwar Singh as the party slowly begins to distance itself from the former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh. "Natwarji has been a senior leader of our party and if he wants to leave the Congress, he would not be stopped. Anybody's quitting would in no way weaken the party, but only strenghthens it," Jaiswal said.
This reaction comes less than 24 hours after Natwar Singh told a private television channel, CNN-IBN, that the party should have done more to defend him . "Of course I am disappointed with the Congress," he said.
Natwar Singh's biggest complaint is that 10 Janpath has closed its doors on him. For someone who was seen to be very close to Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, it comes as a real indictment.
An angry Natwar is now defiant. "Suppose I had written these letters, what is wrong with it?," he questioned. It is this defiance which has got the party worried. Also worrying, signs that the Left parties have openly questioned the Pathak report.
"An oil company, which has got the maximum number of vouchers is a beneficiary . Why hasn't the Pathak Commission looked into that?," CPM General Secretary, Prakash Karat, said.
When Parliament opens on Monday, the government will table the Pathak report and that could spark off the next round in the Natwar Singh saga, at the centre of which is a politician whose very unpredictability makes this an issue which no one is quite sure how to handle. |
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