New Delhi: The crucial meeting at the Prime Minister?s residence has ended with Natwar Singh being asked to vacate the external affairs ministry till the enquiry against him is over.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will keep the External Affairs portfolio with him for the time being till the two probes set up by the government into the Volcker committee report on Iraqi oil pay offs are completed
Natwar Singh has been offered the post of a minister without a portfolio.
The External Affairs Minister had till this morning dismissed the Volcker report as "meaningless" and without any credibility.
But reports pointed to the massive pressure on the foreign minister from within the Congress party to resign.
The decision indicates that Congress president Sonia Gandhi feels that he should go.
Two probes in a day
It has been a day of rapid developments.
The Union government on Monday morning has set up a probe to look into the Volcker report's allegations against External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh.
The PM?s Media Advisor Sanjay Baru said that Virendra Dayal, former UN Under Secretary-General, has been appointed to liase with the UN to assess relevant material including those on the unverified references in the Volcker report.
Virendra Dayal has been assigned three months to gather all material relevant to Natwar Singh?s involvement in Iraq's Oil for Food programme and has been granted full power and authority of the government of India to execute the responsibilities entrusted to him.
Soon after a judicial probe was ordered and the Prime Minister appointed a judicial commission headed by former Supreme Court Chief Justice R S Pathak to inquire into the allegations of the Volcker report.
Politcal storm
The report by UN?s Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, has brewed up a political storm in the country.
Volcker in his report has stated that politicians in several countries were given oil vouchers that could be sold for a commission to help the Iraqi leader in his quest to get UN sanctions lifted.
The Congress party and Foreign Minister Natwar Singh were among those named as non-contractual beneficiaries.
Natwar Singh has refused to comment on the government's probe into the Volcker report.
Meanwhile, officials of the Enforcement Directorate, which is under the Ministry of Finance, is questionaing Andaleep Sehgal and going through his records at his residence and offices in New Delhi.
Sehgal's company Hamdan Export is mentioned in the Volcker report as a non-contractual beneficiary of the Oil-for-Food programme.
Reports say Sehgal is a friend of Natwar Singh's son and Sehgal's company was also named in Volcker report as a non-contractual beneficiary of Iraq's oil-for-food programme.
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