Ministers acting like rats on sinking ship: Bardhan

Hoping the Parliament’s Monsoon session will be the “best session” for the Opposition to corner the UPA, CPI general secretary A B Bardhan today said some “wise” ministers were abandoning the cabinet like “rats out of sinking ships” before investigators reached their doorsteps. He claimed the Congress was on the decline and people had lost faith in the UPA, which spoke regularly about tackling corruption and price rise but did nothing other than getting ministers under fire resign.

Noting that minister after minister was coming under the scanner of investigating agencies in corruption cases, he said, “How many speeches have (PM) Manmohan Singh and (Congress chief) Sonia Gandhi made against corruption but the next day one minister resigns.”

“Who is next? In my view it is Murli Deora. After the allegations raised against him, what is the propriety in his continuing. He has to go,” he said. The remarks came in the backdrop of Deora’s offer to resign ahead of the cabinet reshuffle. “There are some ministers who are abandoning the ship like the rats do when the ship is about to sink...They are wise people. It is like taking anticipatory bail because some of them know that investigations have come close to them and now they are under close watch,” he said.