Natwar Singh should be arrested : BJP

New Delhi : The Bharateeya Janata Party today demanded immediate arrest of Natwar Singh following the exposure of India-Today – Aaaj Tak that Anil Mathrani, the Indian Ambassador to Croatia told them that former external affairs minister Natwar Singh knew about the Iraqi oil deal and in fact was very much party to the business dealings of Andaleeb Sehgal’s company in which his son Jagat Singh had commercial interests. This is the last nail on the coffin of lies uttered by a beleaguered Natwar, who was literally caught with his ‘pants down’ following the Volcker Committee revelations that he took kickbacks for the oil deal with Saddam Hussein administration.

The Manmohan Singh government is being grilled by the Opposition BJP in the Rajya Sabha when reports last came. Though the treasury benches are on the defensive, the BJP led Opposition has stalled the proceedings of the Upper House demanding an explanation from the Government following the disclosures made by Mathrani, a close confidante of Natwar and  Sonia Gandhi.

It has become an open secret that those in the corridors of power during the Congress regimes of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao benefited a lot due to the licence-permit raj and the export-import deals with the then Soviet Union. Those close to the Communist Party leadership made a fortune through shady dealings with the leaders of the Soviet Communist Party leaders. The Mitrokhin Archive, a book on the activities of the Soviet spy agency KGB, has added to the headache of the Congress and Communist leaders of India. The book gives a detailed description about how Communist party leaders and their associates   amassed crores through business deals with the erstwhile USSR.

Natwar and his family members were in the news in the recent past for a number of wrong reasons. The Jordanian wife of Jagat, Natwar’s son, was found dead in mysterious circumstances in a posh Delhi hotel. But Natwar, got the case hushed up, thanks to the tacit support of the Grand Old Man of the CPM, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, yet another wheeler-dealer in Indian politics.

Though a national daily by name The Hindu and its editor N Ram are vocal in their support for Natwar Singh, whose name has become synonymous with corruption and mal practices, the senile former external affairs minister is finding the going quite tough.