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Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani on Friday ruled out the resignation of the National Democratic Alliance government as demanded by the Opposition in the wake of the tehelka.com expose.
"The opposition is to be fully blamed for disrupting parliamentary proceedings, bringing disrespect to democracy. The demand for resignation of the government is anti-democratic and unjust and we are not going to oblige the Opposition. Till we have a majority in Parliament and the people's mandate, we will run the government," Advani said at an emergency meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Party in New Delhi.
He said there had been voting four times in the house on the motion of thanks for the President's address, the BALCO controversy and the votes-on-account on the general Budget and the railway budget and "the government won all four with a big majority".
Advani described the tehelka.com tapes as "doctored and edited" and said there was a question mark on their credibility, party spokesman V K Malhotra told reporters.
The home minister said this was so especially in the case of the tapes telecast on Thursday night by a private television channel where the rooms appeared to have changed from the earlier ones.
Hitting out at the Congress, Advani said it talked of national security, but when the government was prepared for a debate on the tehelka.com expose, they were demanding its resignation.
"The Opposition talks of national security. This government, when it undertook [the] Pokhran [nuclear tests] and later tackled Kargil, showed how serious it was about national security.
"On the other hand, at the time of Kargil, when the Lok Sabha was prorogued, the Congress demanded convening of a special session of the Rajya Sabha to discuss it when our soldiers were shedding their blood for the country. On the other hand, when the government is ready for a debate on the Tehelka issue, Congress is not ready for it, but is demanding the government's resignation," he said.
Briefing the members, Jaswant Singh, who was recently given additional charge of defence, said action was being taken against all officers involved -- defence and civilian -- with three of four civilian officers being suspended.
He said all the tehelka.com tapes were being assessed by the ministry.
PTI
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