Chidambaram mocks PM for his remark on National Herald case

Former finance minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram on Wednesday took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his latest remarks on National Herald case and stated that "whoever has briefed Prime Minister on the proceedings in the Supreme Court yesterday in the Income-tax cases, deserves to be sacked."

Chidambaram was reacting to the prime minister's comments, which he made at an election rally in Sumerpur. "We won in the Supreme Court on Tuesday. The apex court said that the Central government has the right to reassess the income tax returns of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi," Prime Minister Modi had said.

The Congress leader hit back at the Prime Minister, saying, "If nobody briefed him and it was the Prime Minister's own conclusion that he had "won" in the Supreme Court, the government deserves to be thrown out."

Prime Minister Modi was referring to the court case against Congress party president Rahul Gandhi, his mother Sonia Gandhi and other Congress leaders, alleging them of misusing party funds to buy a firm that published the National Herald newspaper.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave green signal to the Income Tax Department to reopen the tax assessment of Rahul and Sonia Gandhi for 2011-12 in connection with the National Herald case.

A bench headed by Justice A K Sikri, however, restrained the I-T department from implementing its order in the proceedings against Rahul and his mother Sonia till the pendency of the matter before the court.

In his election rally, right after the top court's nod, Prime Minister Modi had said, "No one had ever thought that a 'chaiwala' will bring down a party that ruled for four generations in the county. I have taken them to the court and they had to seek bail in the cases related to their acts of corruption.