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| Peerzada goes packing | | | Nirbhay Jammual
Jammu | Jan 15
One of the senior most Cabinet Ministers in the government whose declared top most agenda is to weed out corruption from the public life today went home packing after a hot debate on the charges of graft against him.
Peerzada Mohammad Sayeed has also quit as the President of the Pradesh Congress Committee. The Congress of which Peerzada has been president for nearly five years now also has the war against corruption as its top most agenda.
Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad announced in the Legislative Assembly that "following allegations leveled by a legislator, resignation has been obtained from a Minister which has been sent to the Governor". Despite all the muck and dust raised inside and outside the assembly since Friday, the Chief Minister made all efforts to save public reputation of Peerzada even though he was deeply perturbed by the dirty development.
Chief Minister said, "the Minister was asked to resign till an inquiry was conducted into the whole episode". In a way, he indicated that if Peerzada steers clear of the charges, he may get the position restored in the government. However, political observers believed that such chances were quit grim as the Congress high command in New Delhi too has taken a strong note of the incident.
On Chief Minister's statement that the matter would be probed thoroughly, the leader of the Opposition Abdul Rahim Rather asked, "who will conduct the inquiry". To this, the Chief Minister remarked, "try to trust us. When we have made the Minister to resign we will also take the whole matter to a logical end". The Opposition was satisfied with Chief Minister's promising statement. However, later Ali Mohammad Sagar quipped that it was all due to Opposition's untiring efforts of three days that the Minister had to resign.
Earlier last night, sources said, the Chief Minister had summoned Peerzada and asked him to make a public statement that he will be resigning. Peerzada declared this in the middle of night. He had not come to the assembly or secretariat this morning.
Later talking to the reporters after the session, the Chief Minister said that the one who accepts corruption and the other who offers are equal party to the crime. He said that if the one who offers corruption is not booked this may encourage the practice of falsely implicating people. When asked if this yardstick applies to Shoaib Lone, who admitted having given bribe money to the Minister's personal staff, Chief Minister said, "bygone is bygone but this will be a rule from tomorrow". |
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