Describing the Congress decision to issue a comprehensive legal notice to the United Nations as "Indian diplomacy at its lowest," the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday demanded that External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh be dropped immediately if the credibility of the government and the prime ministerial office was to be restored.
"Instead of ordering a domestic probe (into the Iraqi oil deals), the foreign minister alleges that the Americans have fixed him due to his opposition to the sanctions and the war. The Congress has trivialized the issues by threatening legal action against the United Nations. This is Indian diplomacy at its lowest," party General Secretary Arun Jaitley said in a
statement from Patna.
Maintaining that the Volcker report was a document of high international credibility, he claimed that Russia, Switzerland, Australia and South Africa had already directed domestic probes into the facts disclosed by the report.
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Complete Coverage: Volcker Report
Instead of sending a legal notice to Natwar Singh and the other epicentres of the scam, the Congress chose to send a legal notice to the United Nations, which is incapable of being sued in India's municipal courts, he added.
External Link: 'Report based on Iraqi govt documents'
"This is an opportunity for the prime minister to decide whether he runs a government or merely occupies an office. The credibility of the government, governance and the prime ministerial office is at stake," Jaitley said.
