Congress would insist on forced accountability in Parliament: Anand Sharma

New York: Asking Prime Minister Narendra Modi to break his silence over the Lalit Modi controversy, a senior Congress leader has said that the principled opposition party would insist on "forced accountability" during the upcoming Monsoon session of Parliament.

"We would like to warn the Prime Minister that if he, the BJP and RSS feel that by stonewalling the justified demands of resignations of two of his cabinet colleagues and Chief Minister of Rajasthan, who stand exposed and condemned, and by persisting with his obduracy the opposition would relent, he is sadly mistaken," Deputy Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Anand Sharma told PTI.

Sharma is currently in New York, to attend a meeting of the International Council of the Socialist International, an umbrella organisation of 152 political parties across the world.

"The Congress party, as the principled opposition, will insist on forced accountability and the responsibility for adverse fallout would squarely lie on the door strop of Prime Minister Modi," he claimed.

"It is high time the Prime Minister...breaks his 'maun vrat' (silence), on the issues that have surfaced in recent week," the former Union minister said yesterday.

He was referring to the allegations made against External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Union Human Resources and Development Minister Smriti Irani, and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia.

"The Prime Minister's silence on grave charges of impropriety, dishonesty against his senior ministers and Chief Minister of Rajasthan makes him complacent to the acts of omission and commission," Sharma alleged.

"It is high time that Modi and BJP walk the talk, stop talking and take action," Sharma said.

When asked about one year of performance of the Modi government, Sharma said it is a story of "betrayal and broken promises."

"A year after he came back riding on a tsunami of hopes, created by false hopes and dreams that he sold to the people is run-off, broken promises and betrayal of the people, especially of the farmers, the youth and the poor as is underscored by the policy priorities which has hurt India's weak and vulnerable people," Sharma alleged.

Hitting out further on Modi, he said, "Globetrotting is no substitute for international engagement with gravitas and for statesmanship."

"And he would be, I am told doing same in the coming months, for which hundreds of BJP and RSS people are in Los Angeles to organise a big event in September," Sharma claimed.