No summon from ED: Jagat Singh

Embroiled in a controversy over his role in the Iraqi oil-for-food scam, Union Minister Natwar Singh's son Jagat Singh on Tuesday said the Enforcement Directorate has not summoned him for questioning and blamed the Congress for "mishandling" the whole episode.

Jagat, a legislator whose trip to Iraq in January 2001 along with his father during a Congress delegation's visit is under the scanner, said Natwar would step down as promised and lashed out at "some intellectuals" in the Congress party for baying for his blood. Asked whether the Enforcement Directorate has summoned him, he replied in the negative and questioned the ambit of the ED's investigation into the issue.

"There is no questioning by the ED," he told reporters in New Delhi. He said anybody was welcome to check his bank accounts. "There is nothing else to the matter. All the Indian businesses in Iraq have not broken any laws," he added. Jagat said his father, who was stripped of the External Affairs Ministry portfolio after being named a beneficiary in the Iraqi oil-for-food programme by the Volcker Committee, would resign as promised but asserted that "injustice" was meted out to him.

"He is a minister in the Union Cabinet today and he has to hand over his resignation to the Prime Minister. Sonia Gandhi is our supreme leader, but the protocol demands he hands over his resignation to the PM," he said. "If certain commitments have been made they will be honoured.

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