The Aircel - Maxis deal issue continued to rock both Houses of Parliament for a second consecutive day with the Opposition demanding that they be allowed to seek clarifications on Home Minister P Chidambaram’s statement.
Chidambaram, the then finance minister, yesterday, attempted to clarify his role in the Aircel-Maxis deal by reading out a statement of his son Karti Chidambaram stating that he (Karti Chidambaram) “did not hold any share in Aircel or Maxis”. While in the Lok Sabha, the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party demanded to know how Chidambaram was allowed to read out his son’s statement, in the Rajya Sabha, Leader of the Opposition Arun Jaitley and BJP leader Prakash Javadekar had given a notice for suspension of the Question Hour to seek clarifications on the statement by the home minister. Matters in the Lok Sabha came to such a head yesterday that there was a heated exchange of words between the Leader of the House and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and BJP leader and former finance minister Yashwant Sinha. Mukherjee later apologised to the House for losing his cool.
