Kalpnath Rai quits Congress

Kalpnath Rai resigned from the primary membership of the Congress on Tuesday, accusing party president and Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao of 'eroding the Congress base.'

In a strongly-worded letter to Rao from the Tihar jail, where he is lodged in a TADA case, Rai, a former federal minister, said 'I have a feeling of repentance and anguish in bidding farewell to your Congress because I wasted so much energy and time defending your wrong concerns and I supported a leadership in whose favour I am not in a position to speak a single word in front of society and the world.'

According to sources close to Rai, he has decided to contest the general election as an independent candidate from his traditional Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh.

Rai, who has been accused of harbouring associates of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim, said he had sent all information regarding the allegation levelled against him to the Prime Minister's Office.

'You kept this information close to your heart for full three years and I even continued to be a member of your council of ministers. If I am accused of harbouring the friends of Dawood Ibrahim, then Mr prime minister you are definitely a co-accused,' he said in his letter.

On the sugar muddle when he was the food minister, Rai wanted to know who had forced the then food secretary to import sugar worth billions of rupees in his absence and without any order. Rai was compelled to resign from the federal council of ministers on account of what came to be known as the sugar scam.

On the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Rai said he had forewarned the prime minister to do something to protect it. 'You did not pay any heed and I have enough reasons to believe that whatever the unruly mob was doing was not merely under your full knowledge, but with your tacit consent,' he added.

UNI