Delhi/Mumbai, November 09 2010: Cracking the whip, Congress today sacked Ashok Chavan as Maharashtra Chief Minister and Suresh Kalmadi as secretary of the Congress Parliamentary Party in the wake of embarrassing housing and CWG scams allegedly involving them.

The move by the Congress High Command to cut any further loss of face came just hours before the start of what is expected to be a stormy winter session of Parliament.

Congress General Secretary Janardhan Dwivedi announced that Chavan has been asked by party chief Sonia Gandhi to step down.

"Pending enquiry, his (Chavan's) offer of resignation has been accepted.

He has been asked to tender his resignation to Governor (K Sankaranarayanan)," he said in a brief statement.

The Maharashtra Congress Legislative Party will meet at 10 pm in Mumbai to take a decision on Chavan's successor.

Senior Ministers Pranab Mukherjee and AK Antony will attend the meeting as central observers.

Among the front-runners for the CM's post are Union minister Prithviraj Chavan, Maharashtra Agriculture minister Balasaheb Thorat and Union minister Mukul Wasnik.

In Mumbai, Chavan pleading innocence, said he will come clean on the Adarsh scam.

"Acceptance of my resignation by Congress does not prove my guilt in the Adarsh Housing Society scam," Chavan told reporters after tendering his resignation to Maharashtra Governor K Sankaranarayanan.

"I resigned because of the Congress party's moral stand on such issues.

I resigned on my own.

My resignation has been accepted pending enquiry.

The government is not involved in the scam," the outgoing chief minister said.

51-year-old Chavan, who became the first casualty of the housing scam in which politicians and ex-Army officials are allegedly involved, said that it was not a political set back for him.

"I am 100 per cent sure, I will come out clean on this.

There are ups and downs in political life.

I will continue to work as party worker," he said.

In New Delhi, Dwivedi also announced that the resignation of Kalmadi, who is in the eye of a storm following allegations of corruption in the Commonwealth Games, as Secretary of the Congress Parliamentary Party has been accepted with immediate effect.

Earlier, Kalmadi, who was blamed for the messy preparations for the October Games, was asked to resign.

He is a Lok Sabha member from Pune.

A decision on Chavan's resignation in the wake of revelations that three of his relatives owned flats in the Adarsh Housing Society was pending for the last 10 days in view of the high-profile visit of US President Barack Obama to Mumbai.

The party did not want any political disturbance in the state during his visit.

Chavan had on October 30 offered to resign during a meeting with Gandhi after it emerged that his mother-in-law and two other relatives owned flats in the housing society, wh ich was originally meant for Kargil war heroes and widows.

Gandhi decided to remove Chavan even before Finance Minister Mukherjee and Antony, who had been asked to probe the housing scam, could submit their report.

Despite getting the axe, Chavan, who completed one year in office last Sunday, asserted he still enjoyed the confidence of the Congress President.

"She twice gave me the opportunity to become Chief Minister.

I still enjoy the confidence of my leader Soniaji.

I am grateful for whatever she has done for me," he said.

Speaking to reporters here, Mukherjee indicated that Chavan's resignation was accepted on the basis of perception.

"I am not going to make a value judgement.

It was not a regular inquiry commission.

Nothing like that.

We went on certain aspects.

Political decisions are taken many times on perception and based on certain facts," he said.

When his comments were sought, Rahul Gandhi said the next Maharashtra Chief Minister should be a "clean" person who can "deliver".

"One who is capable and who can deliver," the Congress leader told reporters here when asked how does he expect the next Maharashtra Chief Minister to be.

Shortly after Dwivedi's announcements, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that the government was willing to discuss all issues with the opposition parties and hoped that the Winter Session of Parliament will be peaceful and productive.

"Greetings to you all.

We are looking forward to the session and we hope that this session will be peaceful and productive," he told reporters in Parliament House.

BJP-led NDA had declared that it would not allow Parliament to function till "strong action" is taken in the Adarsh Housing scam.

Kalmadi has been under pressure from opposition parties to resign as Chairman of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee after the corruption allegations erupted, but he had persistently refused to step down.

Soon after the completion of the Games last month, Congress had left Kalmadi to fend for himself declining to give a clean chit to him or others associated with organisation of the Commonwealth Games.

The party decision on the two leaders comes a week after the AICC session in New Delhi, which came under severe criticism from other political parties and media that there was no mention about scams involving top leaders of the Congress.

Congress apparently did not want any further embarrassment with Opposition parties giving notice that they would rake up all issues relating to scams in Parliament.

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