S M Krishna
Targeting Rahul Gandhi, Former Union Minister S M Krishna said he resigned from the post because of the “extra-constitutional authority” wielded by the Congress president.
Krishna further said former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had no say over the portfolio.
“Rahul Gandhi was then a nobody, not even a general secretary. He issued a diktat that those who turned 80 can’t be min. When I heard that, I submitted my resignation and came to Bangalore,” he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Adding that the present Congress chief was “not answerable to anyone – neither Parliament nor governance,” the former union minister recapped the famous incident when Gandhi called the Ordinance that would protect the convicted MPs and MLAs as “complete nonsense.”
The Manmohan Singh-led government had cleared the Ordinance, which sought to negate the Supreme Court judgment that pronounced that sitting MPs and MLAs either jailed on charges or after conviction, would have to resign their seats forthwith. “My opinion on the ordinance is that it is complete nonsense. I think it should be torn up and thrown out. That is my opinion,” Gandhi had told reporters in 2013.
Terming Gandhi’s decisions as “extra-constitutional”, Krishna said: “There were matters that were never brought to notice of even the minister. Cabinet was in discussion over passing an ordinance. But Rahul Gandhi, who was somewhere, tore a copy of the ordinance. He took decisions on which ordinance was necessary and struck down others.”
