Bowing to mounting pressure, Defence Minister George Fernandes on Thursday night resigned from the cabinet following the sensational expose made by tehelka.com about shady defence deals. Prime Minister forwarded his resignation along with those of Mamata Banerjee and Ajit Panja to the President. In a statement, Fernandes said that he has submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Adding he said that there should be a proper inquiry into the allegations of graft in defence deals.

Mr Fernandes said that the accusations made against him were false and designed to malign and undermine the national defence and down the morale of the forces.

``My public life expands to 50 years and I always stood for probity in public life,`` he said. The Prime Minister should order an inquiry into the disclosures made by tehelka.com about defence deals.

The defence minister said that the Opposition, by taking to the streets and not allowing Parliament to function, had prevented him from telling the nation the truth. To prevent further damage to the national security he decided to step down.

``Allegations of kickbacks and middlemen have always been there in defence deals. I came to the defence ministry to run it in a clean manner. I set up complaint boxes where I received thousands of letters.``
However, Prime Minister rejected resignations of Samata leaders Nitish Kumar, Digvijay Singh and Srinivas Prasad.

Bureau Report