Uproar in Paliament

Both Houses of Parliament were rocked today and no business was conducted as the opposition NDA demanded that former Indian Ambassador to Croatia Aniel Matherani's whereabouts be disclosed. Matherani has allegedly been whisked away by Enforcement Directorate officials as soon as he arrived in Delhi after his recall from Croatia.

"The uproar in the House was due to the manner in which Matherani was handled when he came back. Why have others in the Congress delegation to Iraq not been treated the same way, why has Jagat Singh not been interrogated by the ED," said BJP president L K Advani.

The opposition was vocal in its demand that both National Advisory Council (NAC) chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Cabinet minister Natwar Singh resign from their respective posts, after Matherani's disclosure. L K Advani said that the Volcker affair was "getting murkier and murkier "and that the situation was getting slippery for the government."

He added that there was no way for UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to avoid responsibility for the scam. 'In plain Mumbai language yeh Congress ka lafda hai, Natwar to bakra hai (this is a Congress scam, Natwar is just the scapegoat),' said Advani.

Leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh said that this was the first time that a foreign minister of India had been removed in this manner. Even more alarming for him was the changing statements issued by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the Volcker issue.

'The fifth report of the Volcker committee was submitted on October 27 to the UN. On October 28, the PM gave a clean chit to Singh. Till today, the number of times the PM has changed his statement vis a vis this issue must be a world record,' said Jaswant Singh.

He added that, according to his information, Volcker did not hand over any relevant documents to Virender Dayal, a former under secretary at the UN who has been appointed to get the documents.

'The documents had been handed over to the Enforcement Directorate, and Indai's permanent representative at the UN is well equipped to take care of such things, what is the point of Dayal travelling to the UN?' he said. 'The government is sincere about a probe then why take such evasive action,' he added.