Ministers misusing position, alleges BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came back to the issue of tainted ministers heartened by two orders of the Supreme Court, one sending a notice to Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi and a second cancelling Pappu Yadav, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) candidate for the Madhepura Lok Sabha seat, in the Ajit Sarkar murder case.

"Tainted ministers have been using the fact that they are in the government to influence the cases against them. If the Congress and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are not doing anything to stop it then they both are guilty too," said BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley. He urged the Prime Minister to curb these tendencies.

"The country is expecting ethics and upholding of moral standards less from the government and the Prime Ministers and more from the courts. It is sad that there has been such a state of affairs," said Jaitley.

Jaitley also said the dissolution of the Planning Commission consultative groups showed that the government was in a state of internal contradiction.

"This contradiction is reflected in the figures for the economy's first quarter, while the services sector has shown a growth of 10 per cent, manufacturing is lagging at 8 per cent, this despite the immense potential of the sector. I feel if the government had not been such a fractious entity, the figures could have been better," the BJP leader said.