Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram offered to resign on Monday, several TV channels said, days after a document emerged that suggested he failed to stop a multi-billion dollar telecoms scam that has rocked the government.
Chidambaram told ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi he wanted to resign to avoid embarrassing the party, CNN-IBN reported citing unnamed sources. A Finance Ministry memo made public last week implied Chidambaram failed to rectify the underpriced sale of telecoms licences that lost the treasury up to $39 billion. An analyst said Gandhi was unlikely to accept the resignation of Chidambaram because it would admitting that the government had erred.