Former Indian foreign minister Natwar Singh resigned Tuesday from the cabinet in the wake of charges that he and the ruling Congress party skimmed the UN oil-for-food scheme in Iraq.
"I reiterate that I am completely innocent.... However, I do not wish to be the excuse for opposition to stall the parliament. Hence I have decided to tender my resignation from the cabinet," Singh told reporters.
He said that he had not violated any law in "letter or spirit." Singh was removed from the foreign ministry last month pending an inquiry into a UN report naming him and the Congress party in the scandal.
But he remained in the cabinet as a minister without portfolio.
Lawmakers from the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) continued earlier Tuesday to block proceedings in parliament over demands for Singh's head. Both houses of parliament were adjourned just minutes after opposition members walked in loudly demanding Singh resign immediately.
Singh met Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi late Monday and told her he was resigning from the cabinet to save the party and government from further embarrassment, spokesman Anand Sharma said.
The opposition has bayed for blood from Friday after fresh disclosures by India's ambassador to Croatia, also a Congress insider, that the Iraqis had rewarded Singh with an oil allotment for his "personal service."
Singh led a four-member team to Iraq in 2001 that included the envoy, Anil Matherani, who was recalled to Delhi at the weekend.
In October, former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker issued a UN report saying ousted president Saddam Hussein's regime manipulated the oil-for-food programme to extract about 1.8 billion dollars in surcharges and bribes. Volcker named Singh as a beneficiary of four million barrels of Iraqi oil.
Congress, India's oldest political party, was also listed as a beneficiary of a separate allotment of four million barrels.
Singh's resignation came a day after he was unceremoniously removed from the Congress Steering Committee, the top decision making body of the Congress, at a meeting chaired by Gandhi.
Natwar Singh's exit from the coveted party post followed public statements by a number of senior Congress leaders advising him to quit the cabinet and ease the pressure on the government.
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