How can Congress and I be divorced, asks Natwar

Former External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh today said he and the Congress could not be divorced and he will reply to any questions asked by the party in connection with his indictment by the Pathak inquiry authority in the Iraqi oil-for-food scam.

Singh did not respond when asked about possibility of his joining the Samajwadi Party.

"The only strength I had was the Congress party. So how can the Congress party and I be divorced," he told reporters outside Parliament when asked if he was planning to quit the party.

In a brief statement to the media after his indictment by the Pathak panel in the Iraqi oil-for-food scam, Singh had
questioned the clean chit given to the Congress party in the matter.

"How can any aspersion be cast on me and Congress be given a clean chit?" the senior Congress leader said.

Singh had resigned from the Cabinet in December last year in the wake of the political storm triggered by the Volcker Committee's findings that he and the Congress were non-contractual beneficiaries in the UN oil-for-food programme
during the Saddam Hussein regime.