National
Cong. demands Fernandes' dismissal
By Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI, FEB. 2. The Congress today demanded the dismissal of the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, on the ground that ``he was a party to the denigration of the Constitutional institution of the CAG.''
The provocation for the demand is the forwarding letter written by Mr. Fernandes to all MPs recommending the booklet brought out by the journalist, R.V. Pandit, which incidentally gives a ``clean chit'' to the Minister in the ``coffingate scam''.
In a statement issued this evening, the Congress spokesperson, Jaipal Reddy, said the commendatory letter written by Mr. Fernandes was ``full of falsehood''.
The Minister had falsely claimed that the privileged papers were made available to all newspersons and that the documents were not classified. ``The truth is that all of them are either confidential or secret.''
Mr. Reddy said the letter by the U.S. Ambassador, Robert Blackwill, to Mr. Fernandes and the letter addressed to him by the Indian Ambassador, Lalit Mansingh, ``cannot be treated as non-classified.'' He found it significant that both these letters were written on December 20 and their contents were identical.
Mr. Reddy was also ``amazed'' that official expressions such as ``secret'' and ``confidential'' had been deleted from official documents published in Mr. Pandit's booklet.
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