Let Sonia Gandhi expel me: Natwar

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• Oil-for-Food: Natwar may get ED notice
• ED slaps show-cause notice on Natwar
• Cong suspends Natwar Singh

Keywords: Show-cause , Congress

New Delhi: Striking a defiant note, suspended Congress leader K Natwar Singh on Tuesday asked Congress's Disciplinary Action Committee to refer the issue of his expulsion to Sonia Gandhi.

In a six-page reply to the show-cause notice issued against him by the DAC, Singh told its Chairman A K Antony that "it is rather extraordinary that my case for suspension/expulsion has been initiated by and is being considered by a committee of which two members including yourself and another member, both of whom have earlier been expelled by the Congress party for six years for anti-party activities and had launched their own parties."

"In view of this, my case should be referred to the Congress President," said the former external affairs minister, who was suspended after he was indicted by the Pathak Authority for misusing position for getting oil contracts for people close to him.

He was issued a show-cause notice on August 9 by the DAC, asking him to explain why should he should not be removed from the party.

Singh said Pathak had not referred to his affidavit submitted during the hearing. Neither had he referred to the one-hour deposition made by him on May 31.

"Then why were we called and why was I asked for the affidavit," he said, adding no country in the world, except India, had taken the Volcker Committee report seriously.

Singh, who will be addressing a Jat rally in Jaipur on Wednesday, said the show-cause notice said that the Pathak report had revealed his 'misconduct' and asked where this term was used by the probe panel.

On the three letters he had written to the Iraqi authorities, Singh cited the examples of President George W Bush, Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Tony Blair leading their country's business delegations to lobby with the host nations.

"Our delegations go all over the world to promote our goods. All our embassies abroad are doing the same," he said, contending that the oil-for-food programme was a UN programme and it was not not a private enterprise.