New Delhi: Amidst reports that he had offered to quit as Home Minister, P Chidambaram has said that he has "assured the Prime Minister" that he will not comment for now on the 2G controversy that has engulfed him. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has backed his Home Minister.
"As far as Mr Chidambaram is concerned as Finance Minister he continued to enjoy my full confidence, as Home Minister he continues to enjoy my full confidence," Dr Singh said. The Prime Minister is in New York to address the UN General Assembly and he denied reports of infighting in the government, but refused to comment further on the matter as it is subjudice. He reportedly had a 15-minute-long telephonic conversation with Mr Chidambaram, during his stopover at Frankfurt last night, assuring the Home Minister of his support.
The author of the current controversy is a note sent by Pranab Mukherjee's Finance Ministry in March this year to Dr Manmohan Singh's office. It suggests that Mr Chidambaram could have been more proactive as Finance Minister when India's greatest scam was unleashed in 2008 by A Raja, who was then Telecom Minister. The note raises questions about Mr Chidambaram's role in the pricing of second-generation or 2G spectrum - which was not auctioned by Mr Raja and is now considered to have been grossly under-valued.
Mr Chidambaram said that both the Prime Minister and Mr Mukherjee, who are travelling abroad, had called him after the note against him was produced in the Supreme Court. In a statement, Mr Chidambaram clarified, "As reported in the media, the Prime Minister called me last night from Frankfurt and spoke to me. The Finance Minister called me from Washington and spoke to me. I have assured the Prime Minister that I shall not make any public statement on the subject until he returns to India."
The mention of Mr Mukherjee's phone call is an attempt to counter allegations that there is a full-scale war between two of the government's most senior ministers.
The Congress has closed ranks behind Chidambaram, and a party spokesperson said the rift exists only in the media's imagination. But sources say that Mr Chidambaram, during his phone call to the PM last night, complained that there was a campaign within the government to malign him. On Thursday, the Congress said that it has no doubts about Mr Chidambaram's integrity - a response aimed at quelling the opposition's allegations that Mr Chidambaram has to be held accountable for the telecom scam.
The note from the Finance Ministry, marked "secret," was accessed by a Right to Information activist, and presented on Wednesday in the Supreme Court, which is monitoring the investigations into the telecom 2G scam. The 14-page document states that it was "seen by" Mr Mukherjee, establishing that the Finance Minister endorsed its findings. They include stressing that Mr Chidambaram could have tried much harder to force Mr Raja to auction valuable spectrum, instead of bundling it with licenses that were under-valued and sold to companies who Mr Raja favoured. While Mr Chidambaram is choosing not to discuss the controversy, it is certainly the talk of the town with both the government and the Opposition delivering detailed analysis. Law Minister Salman Khurshid has dismissed the note from the Finance Ministry as a paper that "comes from a junior official in the (Finance) ministry...it's not a paper that is being sent either by a senior functionary or a minister," he said. "Some inferences that are sought to be drawn in that brief are certainly not acceptable."
Mr Mukherjee, who is currently in New York, refused to comment on the note other than to attribute its excavation to the Right to Information (RTI) Act, which, he said, has helped India combat corruption. "In fact today a sensational news item has come and it is through the exercise of the RTI. A note was sent by Minister of Finance to Prime Minister. Somebody demanded through the use of RTI to have the copy of that note from the Prime Minister's Secretariat and... fact of the matter is somebody has produced that as a piece of evidence in a particular case," the Finance Minister said.
The Opposition BJP, on the other hand, is treasuring the fact that a section of his own government has found Mr Chidambaram's actions wanting in 2008. "Mr Chidambaram should be either dismissed...or he should resign," said the BJP's Murli Manohar Joshi. "The note makes it clear that he played a role in this scam. The CBI must take up a case against him." Arun Jaitley said "The UPA government is increasingly at war with (in). On the one hand there is lack of trust with people, on the other there is lack of confidence between ministers. A civil war like situation has emerged." Mr Jaitley also said that Mr Chidambaram has several questions to answer about his role in the pricing of spectrum in 2008. "It is not an internal matter of the government. It involves public revenue."
The telecom scam rests on how Mr Raja, now in jail, chose to award mobile network licences and accompanying second-generation or 2G frequency in 2008. Among the charges against him is that he refused to auction the spectrum, opting instead to give licences on a first-come-first-serve basis to ineligible companies. The lack of an auction, some experts say, has cost the government thousands of crores.
The note from Mr Mukherjee's team states that Mr Raja could have been coerced to auction spectrum if the Ministry of Finance, headed by Mr Chidambaram had "stuck to its stand." The document also suggests that even after the licenses were allocated in January 2008 at a cost of Rs. 1600 crore each to companies, the guidelines allowed the government four months to cancel the deals - an exit route that the Finance Ministry should have pushed for.
The note against Mr Chidambaram was prepared by the Deputy Director, Economic Affairs on March 25, 2011. It was produced in court on Wednesday by Subramanian Swamy, who is one of the main petitioners in the case on the telecom scam that is being heard by the Supreme Court. Mr Swamy has been demanding that Mr Chidambaram be charged in the CBI's case. However, in court today, the CBI said that the lack of an auction for spectrum should be blamed not on Mr Chidambaram but on the Department of Telecom which "jumped the gun." The CBI's lawyer, KK Venugopal, said that days before a crucial meeting could be held to discuss the pricing of spectrum, Mr Raja proceeded to sign off on deals with different companies.
"Any one person cannot be held responsible," the CBI's lawyer argued. He requested the judges not to rely on the Finance Ministry note against Mr Chidambaram, and to ignore Mr Swamy's request for a CBI inquiry against the minister.
Mr Raja, who is now in jail, has repeatedly said that he had kept both the Prime Minister and Mr Chidambaram in the loop about his decisions on 2G spectrum. Mr Chidambaram has maintained that he tried to persuade Mr Raja on multiple occasions to opt for an auction. On January 15, five days after Mr Raja signed off on the licenses Mr Chidambaram also wrote to the PM opposing the trade of spectrum.
The government has repeatedly said that it was not the policy followed by Mr Raja but his twisted implementation to benefit certain companies that led to the scam. Different ministers have argued that they implemented the telecom policies introduced by the NDA regime which was in power at the Centre till 2004.
In a controversial report submitted recently, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India or TRAI also said that it did not recommend that 2G airwaves be auctioned.
"As far as Mr Chidambaram is concerned as Finance Minister he continued to enjoy my full confidence, as Home Minister he continues to enjoy my full confidence," Dr Singh said. The Prime Minister is in New York to address the UN General Assembly and he denied reports of infighting in the government, but refused to comment further on the matter as it is subjudice. He reportedly had a 15-minute-long telephonic conversation with Mr Chidambaram, during his stopover at Frankfurt last night, assuring the Home Minister of his support.
The author of the current controversy is a note sent by Pranab Mukherjee's Finance Ministry in March this year to Dr Manmohan Singh's office. It suggests that Mr Chidambaram could have been more proactive as Finance Minister when India's greatest scam was unleashed in 2008 by A Raja, who was then Telecom Minister. The note raises questions about Mr Chidambaram's role in the pricing of second-generation or 2G spectrum - which was not auctioned by Mr Raja and is now considered to have been grossly under-valued.
Mr Chidambaram said that both the Prime Minister and Mr Mukherjee, who are travelling abroad, had called him after the note against him was produced in the Supreme Court. In a statement, Mr Chidambaram clarified, "As reported in the media, the Prime Minister called me last night from Frankfurt and spoke to me. The Finance Minister called me from Washington and spoke to me. I have assured the Prime Minister that I shall not make any public statement on the subject until he returns to India."
The mention of Mr Mukherjee's phone call is an attempt to counter allegations that there is a full-scale war between two of the government's most senior ministers.
The Congress has closed ranks behind Chidambaram, and a party spokesperson said the rift exists only in the media's imagination. But sources say that Mr Chidambaram, during his phone call to the PM last night, complained that there was a campaign within the government to malign him. On Thursday, the Congress said that it has no doubts about Mr Chidambaram's integrity - a response aimed at quelling the opposition's allegations that Mr Chidambaram has to be held accountable for the telecom scam.
The note from the Finance Ministry, marked "secret," was accessed by a Right to Information activist, and presented on Wednesday in the Supreme Court, which is monitoring the investigations into the telecom 2G scam. The 14-page document states that it was "seen by" Mr Mukherjee, establishing that the Finance Minister endorsed its findings. They include stressing that Mr Chidambaram could have tried much harder to force Mr Raja to auction valuable spectrum, instead of bundling it with licenses that were under-valued and sold to companies who Mr Raja favoured. While Mr Chidambaram is choosing not to discuss the controversy, it is certainly the talk of the town with both the government and the Opposition delivering detailed analysis. Law Minister Salman Khurshid has dismissed the note from the Finance Ministry as a paper that "comes from a junior official in the (Finance) ministry...it's not a paper that is being sent either by a senior functionary or a minister," he said. "Some inferences that are sought to be drawn in that brief are certainly not acceptable."
Mr Mukherjee, who is currently in New York, refused to comment on the note other than to attribute its excavation to the Right to Information (RTI) Act, which, he said, has helped India combat corruption. "In fact today a sensational news item has come and it is through the exercise of the RTI. A note was sent by Minister of Finance to Prime Minister. Somebody demanded through the use of RTI to have the copy of that note from the Prime Minister's Secretariat and... fact of the matter is somebody has produced that as a piece of evidence in a particular case," the Finance Minister said.
The Opposition BJP, on the other hand, is treasuring the fact that a section of his own government has found Mr Chidambaram's actions wanting in 2008. "Mr Chidambaram should be either dismissed...or he should resign," said the BJP's Murli Manohar Joshi. "The note makes it clear that he played a role in this scam. The CBI must take up a case against him." Arun Jaitley said "The UPA government is increasingly at war with (in). On the one hand there is lack of trust with people, on the other there is lack of confidence between ministers. A civil war like situation has emerged." Mr Jaitley also said that Mr Chidambaram has several questions to answer about his role in the pricing of spectrum in 2008. "It is not an internal matter of the government. It involves public revenue."
The telecom scam rests on how Mr Raja, now in jail, chose to award mobile network licences and accompanying second-generation or 2G frequency in 2008. Among the charges against him is that he refused to auction the spectrum, opting instead to give licences on a first-come-first-serve basis to ineligible companies. The lack of an auction, some experts say, has cost the government thousands of crores.
The note from Mr Mukherjee's team states that Mr Raja could have been coerced to auction spectrum if the Ministry of Finance, headed by Mr Chidambaram had "stuck to its stand." The document also suggests that even after the licenses were allocated in January 2008 at a cost of Rs. 1600 crore each to companies, the guidelines allowed the government four months to cancel the deals - an exit route that the Finance Ministry should have pushed for.
The note against Mr Chidambaram was prepared by the Deputy Director, Economic Affairs on March 25, 2011. It was produced in court on Wednesday by Subramanian Swamy, who is one of the main petitioners in the case on the telecom scam that is being heard by the Supreme Court. Mr Swamy has been demanding that Mr Chidambaram be charged in the CBI's case. However, in court today, the CBI said that the lack of an auction for spectrum should be blamed not on Mr Chidambaram but on the Department of Telecom which "jumped the gun." The CBI's lawyer, KK Venugopal, said that days before a crucial meeting could be held to discuss the pricing of spectrum, Mr Raja proceeded to sign off on deals with different companies.
"Any one person cannot be held responsible," the CBI's lawyer argued. He requested the judges not to rely on the Finance Ministry note against Mr Chidambaram, and to ignore Mr Swamy's request for a CBI inquiry against the minister.
Mr Raja, who is now in jail, has repeatedly said that he had kept both the Prime Minister and Mr Chidambaram in the loop about his decisions on 2G spectrum. Mr Chidambaram has maintained that he tried to persuade Mr Raja on multiple occasions to opt for an auction. On January 15, five days after Mr Raja signed off on the licenses Mr Chidambaram also wrote to the PM opposing the trade of spectrum.
The government has repeatedly said that it was not the policy followed by Mr Raja but his twisted implementation to benefit certain companies that led to the scam. Different ministers have argued that they implemented the telecom policies introduced by the NDA regime which was in power at the Centre till 2004.
In a controversial report submitted recently, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India or TRAI also said that it did not recommend that 2G airwaves be auctioned.
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