Vaiko says Raja quits only under PM’s pressure.

Vaiko says Raja quits only under PM’s pressure. Unrelenting pressure from the Congress finally forced A Raja to resign as the telecom minister. The party’s stand was conveyed to the Tamil Nadu chief minister by Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee just after Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi decided to take a tough stand after a discussion with Manmohan Singh. As Raja boarded a flight to Delhi at 6pm on Sunday [14-11-2010], A Raja continued to insist that there was no question of his resigning as IT and communications minister. But by the time he landed, it was a different story. Unrelenting pressure from the Congress on the eve of a crucial hearing in the Supreme Court and what promised to be another day of stormy protests in Parliament — forced DMK boss M Karunanidhi to get a reluctant Raja to finally resign. “In order to avoid embarrassment to the government and maintain peace and harmony in Parliament, my leader M Karunanidhi has advised me to resign,” Raja told media persons after submitting his papers to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He asserted that this should not be interpreted as an acknowledgement of guilt, claimed his conscience was clear and aggressively defended his performance as minister. November 14th 10pm DMK issues statement announcing Raja’s resignation. Says decision taken to ensure Parliament is not stalled 10.30pm Raja meets PM and resigns MDMK general secretary Vaiko said the events that led to the resignation of Union minister A Raja showed that he had done so only under pressure from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The PM would have otherwise sacked him, Vaiko said in a statement here on Monday. The magnitude of the scam was such that Raja would not be the only beneficiary, he argued, and added that a joint parliamentary committee probe was necessary to expose and book all those who had shared the “booty”.