BJP demands health minister Ramadoss’s resignation

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New Delhi, May 8: The Opposition BJP on Thursday demanded resignation of health minister Anbumani Ramadoss in the wake of the adverse Supreme Court verdict striking down the law that had forced AIIMS director P Venugopal out of his office.

Claiming the apex court’s verdict as “one more slap on the face of UPA”, the party, which opposed the Bill when it was introduced in Parliament in November last year, also targeted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his “failure” to protect the interest of the premier institute, which suffered a lot because of health minister’s “obstinacy”.

Demanding the health minister’s resignation, senior BJP leader and former health minister Sushma Swaraj described the Supreme Court’s ruling as the “personal defeat for Ramadoss”. “The verdict establishes the malafide intentions and makes it clear that the minister misused the Parliament for his personal ego,” she added. Attacking the Prime Minister, Swaraj said, the judgement also inflicts “aspersions” on him and his government as, it was the Union Cabinet, which cleared “such a legislation” and “Singh is head of it”.

Refusing to buy the argument that the apex court’s verdict as an act of confrontation with the legislature, the BJP leader said, there already exists a constitutional provision of “checks and balances”, which allows Supreme Court to “interpret a law enacted by Parliament”.

In this case, she said, the Supreme Court has not struck down the provision fixing the retirement age of the AIIMS director, but only the proviso making it retrospective, as it was “malafide”.

Attacking the health minister, she said he has “misused” Parliament to remove Venugopal from the post of director after he did not get a favourable verdict from the High Court.