A Rashtrapati Bhavan communique said on Sunday that "The President of India, as advised by the Prime Minister (PM) Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has directed that Mr Singh, external affairs minister, may hold the charge of minister of Defence, in addition to his current charge."

The vacancies created by the resignations of Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, who was looking after the Railways, and her colleague Ajit Panja, who was minister of state in the external affairs ministry, have not yet been filled. The three Samata ministers - agriculture minister Nitish Kumar, minister of state for railways Digvijay Singh and minister of state for consumer affairs V Srinivasa Prasad - who had resigned from the council of ministers to express solidarity with Mr Fernandes, have not yet withdrawn their resignations despite the PM not accepting them and Mr Fernandes himself appealing to them to withdraw the resignations. The ruling NDA, meanwhile, suffered a further jolt with JD (U) leader Ramakrishna Hegde indicating that he might pull out of the NDA as the "accused" Mr Fernandes continued to be its convener. "I would not like to associate myself with a body, where an accused person is also sitting as the convener of the body," Mr Hegde told NDTV.

Meanwhile, the opposition, it seems, will not allow Parliament to function on Monday even though the Government has announced a probe into the expose by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court, and continue to press for the resignation of the Vajpayee government.

As the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury said on Sunday that an impartial enquiry was not possible with the present Government remaining in office.

The Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar, however, said his party would vote in favour of any motion brought in Parliament against the NDA government but was against stalling of proceedings in the house on the issue.

Addressing a rally here, Mr Pawar said he would be meeting leaders of various Opposition parties on Monday to find a solution to the impasse in Parliament.

Meanwhile, the BJP has hit back at Congress president Sonia Gandhi for her attack on Mr Vajpayee as a "traitor" saying she has crossed "all limits of political decency and political culture".

"Sonia Gandhi has gone beyond all limits of political decency and political culture by commenting that Yeh desh ke saath dhokha aur gaddari hai. Does she understand the meaning of gaddari? What strange charge has the Congress president made? It pains one to see the low depth to which Congress leadership has descended," BJP acting president Jana Krishnamurthi told newspersons here adding that successive Congress governments had compromised the country's security.

The RSS on Sunday blamed "incompetent" officials in the PM's office for the crisis and suggested there should be no "extra-constitutional" authorities.

"We have been telling Mr Vajpayee that only competent people should be appointed to the PMO. If there were competent people, it (the present crisis) would not have taken place," RSS chief KS Sudarshan told newspersons here.