New Delhi: Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Home Minister P Chidambaram are likely to jointly clarify the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government's stand on the controversial note on the 2G spectrum allocation sent by the Finance Ministry to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).
The two are likely to address the media and claim that there is no infighting in the Government. Mukherjee met Congress President and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi to explain the Finance Ministry note on 2G issue.
Sonia also met Defence Minister AK Antony and her political secretary Ahmed Patel at her residence to discuss the 2G note and its repercussions on the party and the Government.
Meanwhile, Mukherjee attempted a balancing act and said that the 2G note was written after inputs received from the PMO and there was no criminality on the part of Chidambaram during his tenure as the finance minister in UPA-I.
Mukherjee played down reports of rift with Chidambaram and told Sonia and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the controversial 2G note was just a background paper and was in no way an indictment of the Home Minister's role in scam.
Pranab's written explanation categorically states that the Finance ministry note was prepared in consultation with the Prime Minister's office and was handled by the senior-most bureaucrat in the country - the Cabinet Secretary.
The note, as Mukherjee explained, was made as a consolidated and comprehensive background note.
A meeting held on March 15 and 16 at the Cabinet Secretary's office, was attended by secretaries in Finance, Department of Telecom, Law, Environment ministries and the Principal Secretary in the PMO.
After the meeting, the Finance Ministry sent a 12-paragraph note to the Cabinet Secretary, who in turn returned it with 14 more paragraphs.
The Cabinet Secretary also asked for the document to be vetted and shown to Mukherjee. The inputs were provided by the PMO and the Cabinet Secretariat.
Congress leader and Union Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath, too, claimed that there was no infighting in the party over the note and the scam.
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