Congress has reduced the government to a bazaar: BJP

Charging that the government is working for dealers and brokers where every decision is up for sale, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday demanded that Railway Minister Pawan Bansal be sacked for the alleged involvement of his nephew in a bribery scandal.

Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said the latest corruption charges in the government further "reinforces" their demand for the Prime Minister's resignation.

"This government is no more a government of middlemen. It is a government of dealers, brokers and middlemen, where every government decision is up for sale and you must be prepared to offer the price.

"Congress has reduced the government to a bazaar where every decision is tradeable. This is very shocking and distressing state of affair," Prasad told reporters in New Delhi.

He said each passing day is becoming more shameful for the government as the "railwaygate" scam has come even before the "embers of 2G and coalgate are yet to subside".

The latest revelation is a "symptom" of the "serious silence" and "inaction" of the prime minister in taking action on several other scams and where the ministers are enjoying his patronage and that of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, he said.

Bansal cannot absolve himself of the charges where his nephew has been arrested by CBI last night for allegedly fixing a top level position in Railway Board, he said.

Shankar said under the Prevention of Corruption Act if any public servant abuses his position to obtain pecuniary benefit for himself or any other person, his is likely to be prosecuted and convicted.

"And the way the railway board membership promotion is the object of corruption in this case, pecuniary advantage by someone close to the railway minister... seeking that pecuniary advantage, abusing the authority of the railway minister is a copybook case of prosecution of Bansal," he said.

"Therefore, in addition to demanding his sacking, BJP would like the CBI must prosecute him," he said.

Prasad further appealed to the President to exercise his authority so that the Railway Minister is brought to book.