The bribery charge levelled by AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha against "persons close" to Prime Minister A B Vajpayee became a new rallying point for all Opposition parties with all demanding CBI inquiry into the allegation that "hefty bribes" were paid for removing M K Bezbaruah from the Enforcement Directorate to the Delhi government.
The Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) of G K Moopanar went a step ahead and demanded that Prime Minister A B Vajpayee should either resign over the charges, or drop AIADMK ministers from the Cabinet.
Jayalalitha's ally Subramaniam Swamy joined the chorus of CBI inquiry along with the Congress, the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal of Laloo Prasad Yadav.
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The Prime Minister's office and the BJP rejected the demand for inquiry and dismissed the allegation.
Congress spokesman Ajit Jogi called the bribery charges as "extremely serious" and demanded that the government should reveal the "rationale and background" of the recent transfers and also the identity of the person in the Prime Minister's office who took the bribes.
"The government should reveal the identity of the persons in the PMO as mentioned by Jayalalitha", he said.
He specified that the inquiry should be by an independent agency.
Jogi said that it was "tragic" that the large-scale secretarial transfers had become controversial. Civil servants transfers "have never been allowed to become controversial". "It destroys the confidence of civil service in the political leadership and thoroughly demoralises them".
He said that it was ironical that the allegation was made just the day after the prime Minister announced that the office of the Prime Minister will be within the preview of the Lok Pal. Rejecting the government's denial of the corruption charges, Jogi said that "it reveals less and conceals more".
Laloo Prasad Yadav said the accusations of "sister Jayalalitha" against Vajpayee should be investigated by the CBI or a joint Parliamentary committee.
Claiming that the present government would not be in power by then, Yadav said his party and the allies would ensure that the issue is taken up and pursued in the next session.
Subramaniam Swamy said that the "sordid" affair of transfers of top bureaucrats at the Centre should be probed and anyone who gave or accepted bribe should be prosecuted.
Swamy claimed that Jayalalitha's charge that a media baron had paid a bribe to get a "more flexible and pliable" officialdom in the finance ministry to escape from his FERA cases, was "highly credible". This media baron had also funded the "topple Deve Gowda campaign" in March last year, he claimed.
TMC yesterday demanded that Vajpayee should resign from his post by making it clear that he would not continue in office with the support of the
AIADMK whose leader had levelled the charge.
Party general secretary Peter Alphonse and treasurer D Sudarsanam appealed to the Prime Minister "to safeguard the dignity of his office by taking one of the two steps".