UPA's Black Friday: Ashwani Kumar, Pawan Bansal resign

In a day of high drama, law minister Ashwani Kumar resigned on Friday following the resignation of railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal. Ashwani Kumar was under fire from the opposition after the Supreme Court came down heavily on the CBI for allowing the law ministry to vet the draft of CBI probe report on Coalgate. 

Earlier in the evening, a beleaguered railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal had resigned from his post. This comes in the wake of a meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. 

Earlier, Congress spokespersons have been maintaining that government is "seized" of the matter of continuance of Bansal. 

Significantly, Bansal skipped a meeting of the Union Cabinet last evening, that added grist to the mill that he could be on his way out. 

The railway minister's nephew Vijay Singla has been arrested for allegedly trying to fix the promotion for a member in the railway board. 

Bansal's woes mounted when the CBI questioned his private secretary Rahul Bhandari, a 1997-batch IAS officer from Punjab cadre, in connection with the alleged Rs 10 crore bribery scandal. Bansal has denied any wrongdoing by him claiming that he has no business links with Singla. (PTI)