Says the PM had clarified he would give a statement.
A day after the top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) expressed different views on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accepting responsibility for the appointment of former Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) P J Thomas, Sushma Swaraj, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, clarified that there was no difference of opinion between her and the BJP leadership.
Blaming the entire confusion on Twitter, Swaraj, while talking to reporters on Saturday morning, said, “There is no difference of opinion between BJP, Arun Jaitley and I. The Prime Minister had already stated that he will make a statement in the House, and so I didn’t write it on Twitter. There is a constraint on Twitter that you have to say things in 140 characters only, and so I did not write it there.”
Soon after the Prime Minister accepted his responsibility on the appointment of Thomas, Swaraj had commented on Twitter, “I appreciate the statement of the Prime Minister owning responsibility for the appointment of CVC, which has been quashed by the Supreme Court. I think this is enough. Let matters rest at this and we move forward.”
Meanwhile, another senior leader of BJP, Arun Jaitley, the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, has maintained that the Prime Minister must clarify where he was misled or he chose to be misled on the issue of appointment of Thomas as the CVC. The clash of views in the BJP came out in the open after BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Prime Minister would give a structured response in the Parliament.
Further clarifying her comment on Twitter, Swaraj said, “It is there in newspapers that there are differences between Arun Jaitley and I. He (Arun Jaitley) had demanded a statement from the Prime Minister, but he (Manmohan Singh) had already said that he will give a statement in the Parliament,” she added.