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Former Uttar Pradesh governor and former foreign secretary, Romesh Bhandari, said that it is unfair to hang ousted foreign minister Natwar Singh over unsubstantiated charges, forcing him to resign from the Union Cabinet, and to stall the proceedings of the House.
Speaking to rediff.com, Bhandari said: "We have been hearing stories about the various National Democratic Alliance leaders and a close relative of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee making visits to Iraq and dealing with the former Iraqi government in the oil-for-food programme."
The "wheeling and dealing of those people" also needs to be probed, he said.
Bhandari wanted the government to expand the scope of the Justice R S Pathak Committee to include all the companies who had dealt with the former Iraqi regime.
"I believe my interview to Hindi weekly magazine Outlook was raised in Parliament Thursday and I hope that the scope of the Pathak Committee is expanded," he added.
Waving reports of the news magazine, Congress members led by Ambika Soni and Anand Sharma demanded in the Rajya Sabha that the government investigate the reports.
The remarks sparked off heated exchanges leading to the adjournment of the house twice in the afternoon.
Soni and Sharma demanded that in view of the seriousness of the matter and attempts by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party to paint the Congress as villians in the Iraqi oil deals, it was fair that the House take up the issue immediately.
However, Deputy Chairman K Rehman Khan who was in the chair said the matter could not not be raised as no notice had been given for it. He also took exception to Congress and BJP members waving placards of the media allegations.
As the Congress members remained unrelenting, Khan adjourned the house for 10 minutes, but tempers ran high even when the house resumed as BJP members rushed into the well waving banners calling for resignation of Sonia Gandhi as chairperson of the National Advisory Council.
With members indulging in heated exchanges, the deputy chairman adjourned the house till 1500 hours.
With PTI inputs