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.