INDIA: India's parliament was paralysed again yesterday after Hindu nationalist opposition deputies disrupted its working to put pressure on the new communist-supported coalition government to drop cabinet ministers charged with corruption and attempted murder.
Indian law does not ban anyone from holding public office unless they are found guilty in court.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been sniping at the new Congress Party-led alliance after losing power in an election upset last month.
It said the appointment of "tainted" ministers had undermined the Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh's, clean image.
"Manmohan Singh is an honourable man.
"The country expects him to assert himself to uphold the principles of probity in public life," BJP spokesman Mr Arun Jaitley said.
The mild-mannered Mr Singh - who became prime minister after the Congress Party chief, Italian-born Ms Sonia Gandhi, criticised for her foreign origins, turned down the job - named several leaders from a regional party facing criminal charges to his 67-member cabinet.
One such appointment is the Railways Minister, Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav, charged with corruption in government procurement when he was chief minister of the impoverished Bihar state.
Mr Taslimuddin, a junior agriculture minister who also belongs to Mr Yadav's party, stands charged with attempting to murder a rival, looting weapons from a police station and of intimidation.
Two other ministerial colleagues from Mr Yadav's party face graft charges.
The Congress says the ministers are innocent until proven guilty and accuses the BJP of adopting "double standards" on public probity when it was in power.
Outgoing deputy prime minister Mr Lal Krishna Advani and two former cabinet colleagues were charged with inciting communal passions following the 1992 demolition of a mosque on a site disputed by Hindus, but they remained in government.
The BJP, however, claimed the charges against its leaders were political, not criminal.
Analysts said the BJP, stung by its election loss, was trying to rally its cadres' flagging morale by targeting the new government.