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DEC 5: Uma Bharti was today expelled from the primary membership of the BJP for indiscipline and anti-party activities.

This is the second time that she has been expelled from the party.

Announcing her expulsion, party spokesman Arun Jaitley, told reporters that the party met to consider Bharati's reply to the show-cause notice issued to her, and decided to expel her because the matter was one of "indiscipline".

To side-track the issue, Bharati took up many other issues which are neither germane (to the notice) nor true, he said. "It (the language used by her) is not the issue of dignified politics, he added.

Volcker 'Category 2' storm now
Natwar Singh

DEC 5: Sleuths from the intelligence agencies and the Enforcement Directorate on Saturday night picked up for questioning India's Ambassador to Croatia Anil Mathrani whose reported claims in connection with the Volcker issue have led to a fresh standoff between Congress and the Opposition.

Mathrani was met by officials from the Enforcement Directorate and intelligence agencies as soon as he landed at the airport in New Delhi on Saturday night and taken to an undisclosed location to verify his statements given to NDTV - a TV channel and India Today, an influential newsmagazine.

A news report says Minister without portfolio Natwar Singh on Sunday refused to "sacrifice" himself by quitting the Union Council of Ministers as it would look like an admission of guilt and might not stop with his resignation. The Opposition will use my resignation to further tarnish the reputation of the Congress Party. I will not let this happen."

Breaking his silence, Mr. Jagat Singh, Natwar Singh's son admitted that he was not part of the official Congress delegation but had gone in his capacity as Youth Congress leader to assist his father, as he was unwell. He said he had informed the [then] Youth Congress president R.S. Surjewala, who had endorsed the trip, but Mr. Surjewala denied in an interview to a TV channel Jagat Singh's assertion. "No one approached me for this. I did not clear the visit," said Mr. Surjewala, who is now the Haryana Transport Minister.

Meanwhile, the Volcker storm in Parliament is unlikely to subside till the return of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, from Moscow on Wednesday . An all-party meeting tomorrow to break the deadlock was called off.

The planned meeting to break the logjam was put off due to Opposition's insistence over the presence of the Prime Minister, who is also Leader of the Rajya Sabha.

Maintaining that Natwar Singh was being made a scapegoat by the Congress to "save its skin" in the Iraqi oil deals, Leader of the Opposition L K Advani, today again demanded that the ruling party apply the same yardstick and remove Sonia Gandhi as Chairperson of the National Advisory Council.

Uma Bharati

Addressing a press conference here, the BJP President also rubbished the suggestion that the Opposition was raising its pitch on the Volcker report to divert attention from the Uma Bharti issue saying while one dealt with the party's internal affairs, the other related to "purity in politics".

Advani, who drew parallels between the present situation and the run-up to the Emergency, said "in Mumbaiya Hindi, one could say Congress Ka Lafda Hai, Natwar To Bakra Hain (The Congress is the culprit and Natwar Singh is being made a scapegoat. It is important for the country that the Congress role in the whole episode becomes clear.

"The Leader of the Opposition (in Rajya Sabha) was not allowed to speak. A blanket is put around the Indian Ambassador to Croatia and he is whisked away on returning to the country reminding one of the midnight knocks during the Emergency. The Prime Minister says he will consider if Natwar Singh offers to resign. All these statements show the ruling party in bad light. The Minister and his family are repeatedly saying don't make us a scapegoat."

"It seems obvious that the present mood in the ruling establishment is that if blame is put on one person, the party may perhaps be able to get out of it", he said.

"It was bad enough for an individual to be named in the Volcker Report but that the Congress has been named is more serious. You cannot have double standards. Natwar Singh has been stripped of his portfolio. The same approach should be adopted in the case of the Congress President also. Until investigations are complete, the NAC Chairman should quit office", Advani said.

Advani

The Leader of the Opposition, however, alleged that "other considerations were weighing with the party, not accountability".

Terming the Winter Session of Parliament as a "single scam session" and "Iraqi oil scam session", he said, the "oil scam is getting murkier and murkier with every passing day. Correspondingly for the Government, the situation is becoming more and more slippery. There is a sinking feeling".

"That the UN report should name a senior Minister of the UPA and its principal party is bad in itself. The manner in which it is being handled is even worse", he said.

While the principal defence of the ruling coalition was the names were unverified, the Aneil Matherani episode has given a "new turn to the story. It is verification by an insider that there is substance in the allegations," he said.

Matherani, Advani said, was not an ordinary person but one of the four persons sent by the party to Iraq as also then Secretary of its Foreign Affairs Cell.

He said while the Congress' "displeasure" over him was understandable, the manner in which he was treated when he returned showed how the coalition was "messing up the whole thing".

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Dalmiya quits as head of Asian body

KOLKATA, Dec 3 (Reuters) Former International Cricket Council (ICC) president Jagmohan Dalmiya resigned as chief of the Asian cricket body on Saturday after his group was voted out in last week's Indian board elections. "In the wake of the recent changes in the Indian board, I feel it is only appropriate that I tender my resignation with immediate effect from both positions," he said in a statement.

Natwar meets Singh, sans resignation

DEC 3: Former external affairs minister Natwar Singh met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, fuelling speculation about his resignation.

Singh, who was accused by his close aide and India's Ambassador to Croatia Anil Mathrani of receiving oil allotment from Saddam's regime for his "personal services", drove to the Prime Minister's official residence for a meeting that lasted about 40 minutes.

Though there was no official word on what transpired at the meeting, sources said he is not resigning, according to media reports.

Earlier, putting up a brave front, Natwar Singh told reporters on the margins of a function in New Delhi that he would "face" the "struggle".

"There is a struggle, we will face it," he said when asked whether he found himself in a situation of "struggle" like Mangal Pandey, the hero of India's first independence struggle of 1857, because of the latest developments.

Singh refused to make any further comments, including whether he would send a legal notice to Mathrani for comments attributed to him by a news magazine alleging that he had received oil vouchers for himself and his Congress party.

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