NEW DELHI: Hitting back at Natwar Singh, Congress today said his “pique and antagonism” against the Gandhi family were on display because he was asked to resign from the Cabinet in the wake of the Volcker report on Iraqi food-for-oil scam.
Party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi told reporters that the Volcker report had concluded that Singh’s family were non-contractual (corrupt) beneficiaries” of the Iraqi oil-for- food programs.
Singhvi dwelt at length at the AICC briefing on the food-for-oil scam involving Singh to highlight the former Union Minister’s “pique and the underlying antagonism” against the Congress leadership, which, he said is the “subtext” of his proposed book.
Noting that Congress could understand the attitude of Singh, he wondered what was the alternative with the UPA-I government and with Congress party in the light of what has been written in the Volcker Report.
He said the UPA-I government and Congress took an “uncompromising stand and it was a clearly principled stand when Natwar Singh was asked to resign from the Council of Ministers and of course later from CWC.”
Both the government and the party had “no option but to take serious cognizance of the extremely serious findings of the so-called Volcker committee to investigate the so-called UN oil-for-food program.”
He said the Volcker committee report said on 27.10.2005 that Natwar Singh’s family were non-contractual (corrupt) beneficiaries of the oil-for-food programs.
The Justice R S Pathak Committee, which later went into the matter, found it to be “entirely an individual enterprise and adventure of Mr Natwar Singh and family. And there was therefore no option but to take the action which was taken.”–PTI
