Today was the black Friday for Congress-led UPA government as two of its ministers resigned from their posts after Congress President Sonia Gandhi instructed them to do so. Law minister Ashwani Kumar quit following the resignation of railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal. Ashwani was under fire from the opposition after the Supreme Court came down heavily on the CBI for allowing the law ministry to change the draft of CBI probe report on Coalgate.
Earlier in the evening, Pawan Kumar Bansal had resigned from his post. He quit at around 9 pm, while Ashwani tendered his resignation after 50 minutes, i.e. 9:50 pm. This comes in the wake of a meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
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Bansal was bound to resign after his nephew Vijay Singla was arrested in a railway bribery case. He was accused of trying to fix the promotion for a member in the railway board.
Despite uproar in the parliament by the opposition members, the PM and Bansal had been avoiding to give replay on this matter. Similarly, the pressure was high on Ashwani after the apex court slammed the CBI calling the investigating agency a “caged parrot”.