All Farooq ministers resign except scam-tainted Ansari
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

JAMMU, DEC 8: Barring the tainted Housing and Urban Development Minister Moulvi Iftikar Hussain Ansari, all the 31 ministers submitted their resignations to Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah, to facilitate the much talked of reshuffle in his ministry today morning.

This followed a 40-minute-long Cabinet meeting chaired by Farooq where he, in his capacity as Home Minister, ordered the administration to proceed as per law in the Sidhra township scam involving Ansari. The Housing Minister, however, did not attend the Cabinet meeting as he was away in Pattan.

The Chief Minister, however, flew away to Delhi shortly after the meeting and gave no indication of any time limit to reshuffle or prune his ministry.Earlier, the Cabinet appeared divided over the Ansari episode as the issue came up for discussions before it as per the agenda. Significantly, three senior National Conference ministers openly defended the tainted minister, who had been indicted in the proposed Sidhra township scam by theCrime Branch, sources said.

Ansari was elected to the State Legislative Assembly from Pattan as a Congress nominee in 1996 and later expelled from the party on grounds of accepting a berth in the Farooq cabinet. The State's Crime Branch had charged him with accepting a kickback of Rs 60.25 lakh from a private company which duped the State exchequer of Rs 4.75 crore in the name of providing it a loan of Rs 150 crore for the development of proposed Sidhra township. During investigations into the case, the Crime Branch had claimed to have seized some ``sensitive documents'' from the premises of the Delhi-based company necessitating the interrogation of Ansari and his family members.

The inquiry report was released to the media by the Information Department of the State Government recently, following reports that Ansari had defied the Chief Minister's directive to resign from the Cabinet in the wake of corruption charges against him. However, after the release of the inquiry report by the Government, theminister threatened to expose the real facts about Sidhra township scam, as also the names of the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats bent upon damaging his political career.

The minister's threat apparently subdued the Chief Minister who had a dinner at Ansari's residence the same evening and started telling mediapersons that no one can be punished until held guilty by the court. He has been given a chance to explain his position, he added.

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