Jayanthi hits out at Rahul, quits Cong

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 30

In another jolt to the Congress today, former Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan quit the party accusing its Central leadership of vilifying, humiliating and sidelining her when she was “only following Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s directions on green nod to major projects”.
Sacked from the Congress-led UPA-II in December 2013 for stalling big ticket projects, Jayanthi said today that she acted on “specific requests from Rahul’s office about project clearances and was following the Congress line of protecting forest and tribal rights in cases like Vedanta”.
“I did nothing wrong and am ready to face any probe,” the 60-year-declared in Chennai today, putting the Congress on the defensive and sending the ruling BJP on a major offensive against the Congress, including a call to review all environment projects cleared under the then PM Manmohan Singh.
While the Congress backed Rahul dismissing Jayanthi’s charges as “an image saving exercise inspired by ulterior motives”, the BJP led by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley slammed the UPA for practising “a sadistic economy and crony capitalism”.
“The UPA-II practised a policy where it wanted to teach a lesson to some people and favour some…..This had to be for corrupt and collateral reasons,” he said with the BJP taunting the Congress for remote controlling its Government. Hit by the ‘Jayanthi bolt’, the Congress questioned the timing of her outburst and stopped short major offensive against the Congress, including a call to review all environment projects cleared under the then PM Manmohan Singh.
While the Congress backed Rahul dismissing Jayanthi’s charges as “an image saving exercise inspired by ulterior motives”, the BJP led by  Arun Jaitley slammed the UPA for practising “a sadistic economy and crony capitalism”.
“The UPA-II practised a policy where it wanted to teach a lesson to some people and favour some…..This had to be for corrupt and collateral reasons,” he said with the BJP taunting the Congress for remote controlling its Government. Hit by the ‘Jayanthi bolt’, the Congress questioned the timing of her outburst and stopped short
 of saying that she was acting under pressure from the BJP which “may now have evidence of her corruption”.  The Congress refused to see in today’s developments an ongoing pattern reflecting the losing grip of the Gandhis. Only 12 days ago, another ex-UPA minister Krishna Tirath had joined the BJP though Jayanthi today said she would not become part of any outfit after her bitter Congress experience.

Snoopgate

Replying to Jayanthi’s charge that she was asked to attack PM Modi on Snoopgate issue even when she didn’t want to, Singhvi said, “Four women, including ministers Girija Vyas and Jayanthi, were asked to articulate party line on that matter. If Jayanthi had reservations about speaking the party line which is a spokesperson’s job, she should have quit either as minister or as spokesperson.”