New Delhi, Oct 6 (IANS) Congress MPs from Kerala have written to party president Sonia Gandhi seeking action against lawyer and party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi for defending in the Kerala High Court a lottery distributor accused of irregularities.
Many of them say the Congress-led alliance will face a setback in the coming local body elections if action is not taken against Singhvi even though he has withdrawn from the case since then.
‘I am the first one to write to madam Gandhi to take action against Singhvi. His action demoralised our party workers in the state,’ Idukki MP P.T. Thomas told IANS over telephone from his constituency Wednesday.
Though Thomas did not elaborate, a senior Congress leader from Kerala said many MPs have written to the Congress president, seeking disciplinary action against Singhvi.
‘A number of MPs have written to Sonia Gandhi as they feel that the party is in a grave crisis after Singhvi defended the distributor in the high court,’ the leader, who did not want to be named, told IANS.
The Congress has 13 MPs from Kerala in the Lok Sabha. Senior Congress leaders and central ministers A.K. Antony and Vayalar Ravi are among the Rajya Sabha MPs.
Singhvi last week appeared for Megha Distributors, an agent for lotteries of Sikkim and Bhutan and accused of irregularities. This upset Congress leaders in Kerala, who have consistently alleged that the firm’s owner was linked to the state’s ruling CPI-M.
The Congress-led opposition has been campaigning against lotteries from outside the state.
‘Our complaint against Singhvi is being taken up in the most serious manner by our party national leadership and it was most improper for Singhvi to appear in this case when we have taken this as a major corruption issue against the Left government,’ leader of opposition in Kerala assembly Oommen Chandy said in Thiruvananthapuram.
Left leaders in Kerala, including state Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, have alleged that Singhvi took on the case with the full knowledge of the Congress president.
