Gujral asks Prasad Varma to resign
Gujral asks Prasad Varma to resign
NEW DELHI (Reuter): Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral
has asked a junior minister accused in a $280-million corruption
scandal to resign, government officials said yesterday.
They said Gujral had written to Junior Rural Areas and
Employment Minister Chandradeo Prasad Varma seeking his
resignation from the council of ministers.
Varma is one of several dozen people accused in a fodder
scandal in the mineral-rich eastern state of Bihar.
On Tuesday, the Bihar governor authorized federal police to
prosecute Varma and the state chief minister, Laloo Prasad Yadav,
in the corruption scandal.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was expected to
indict Varma, Yadav and 54 others in the case later yesterday or
today, officials told Reuters.
The CBI had required permission from the state governor to
pursue legal proceedings against Yadav and Varma. The charges
against Yadav will carry a maximum penalty of seven years in
jail, CBI officials said.
Both Yadav, who is president of Gujral's Janata Dal party, and
Varma have said they are innocent in the scandal, which dates
back to the 1980s and involved the alleged siphoning off of
animal welfare funds.
Varma was not immediately available for comment. The Press
Trust of India quoted the junior minister on Thursday as saying
he would abide by the prime minister's direction but did not see
the need to resign immediately.
The scandal has stoked tension in the Janata Dal, which is the
biggest group in Gujral's 15-party United Front coalition, and
confronted the prime minister with his biggest political
challenge since he took office in late April.
On Thursday, Yadav applied for bail to prevent his possible
arrest. Yadav's lawyer, Chitaranjan Kumar Sinha, told reporters
in the state capital Patna that his client had been falsely
implicated in the scandal.
Yadav is locked in a party election tussle with challenger
Sharad Yadav, no relation of the Bihar chief minister but a key
rival in the low-caste Yadav community to which they both belong.
Mutual mistrust over party electoral proceedings has spilled
over to courtrooms.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court appointed two senior Janata Dal
leaders, Madhu Dandvate and Information and Broadcasting Minister
Jaipal Reddy, to hold party elections by July 3.