Congress targets Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over DDCA, demands resignation

NEW DELHI: Congress today targeted Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and demanded his resignation over alleged "gross financial irregularities" in Delhi's cricket body DDCA when he headed it from 1999 to 2013.

In a further escalation of the confrontation between the opposition party and the government, the party claimed that a committee constituted by Delhi government has found "gross financial irregularities" in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) during that period.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had yesterday indicated that he proposed to order a Commission of Inquiry into the report of the committee set up by his government to go into the DDCA affairs, which implicated Jaitley.

Jaitley had dismissed his claims as "absolute rubbish" but he was not available immediately to react to the Congress charges.

Congress fielded its top parliamentary leaders to launch the attack on Jaitley and the affairs of the DDCA, a Sec 25 non-profit company, and demand that he should step down because a fair probe was not possible as long as he was in office.

Flanked by Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, party leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge senior spokesman Ajay Maken also sought setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to go into the issue.

"Congress demands that pending the completion of inquiry through a JPC, Arun Jaitley step down, failing which the Prime Minister should sack him," Maken said at a press conference.

He made his claims on the basis of reports of a three-member committee set up by Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal, an RoC report of last year, findings of a two-member commission constituted by a Delhi court and an internal fact-finding committee of DDCA.

Maken said four persons in the DDCA, who have been "known for their proximity" to Jaitley have been named as "officers in default" by the Registrar of Companies in his order of August last year.

"How can a fair probe into the issue is possible as long as Jaitley is the Finance Minister, who is also the Corporate Affairs Minister", he wondered.