New Delhi, Sep 23: As a fresh controversy surfaced in the 2G scam with Home Minister P Chidambaram being dragged into it, BJP took potshots at the Government saying there was a “civil-war like situation” and asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to clarify his stand. Referring to the Finance Ministry note which said that 2G spectrum could have been auctioned if Chidambaram as Finance Minister in 2008 had insisted, BJP leader Arun Jaitley hailed Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, saying “at least someone in Congress has spoken the truth”.
He said the government had attacked anyone—judiciary, the opposition and the CAG—who spoke about irregularities in 2G spectrum allocation but “now the most experienced and wisest person in the government is saying so.” Addressing a function here, the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha said, “the government is at war with itself... There is a civil-war like situation within” the government. Taking a dig at Singh's continued silence, Jaitley said, “the most important question that the Prime Minister should be asked is—whether you were there or not or you had no knowledge of even this.”
Asking the Prime Minister what he was “doing when national loot was taking place”, Jaitley had a poser for him •“What was your responsibility? Were you only guilty of a conspiracy of silence?”
Jaitley said since the Prime Minister heads the Council of Ministers, “he just can't delegate the responsibility to two ministers and abandon his responsibility, particularly when his own correspondence with A Raja (then Telecom Minister) reveals that he had a lurking suspicion that all was not well.
“Should the Prime Minister not inform us what steps he took in the matter of protecting India's resources and Revenue?”Jaitley also took a swipe at Singh's argument of
“compulsions of coalition politics”, contending “the Congress does not even appear to be a coalition (itself). There are so many differences and distrust between its own leaders and ministers.”
He went on to say that 2G case could not be linked to coalition politics. “It is not a matter of law or technology. It is a matter of plain economy. It is a pure and simple economic question and the Prime Minister cannot say he cannot understand all this. He is a good economist and understands all this,” he said.
Even as he praised Mukherjee over the note sent to the Prime Minister, the BJP leader said he was disappointed at his statement in the US last night that he would not speak on it taking the plea of the matter being “sub-judice”. “Mukherjee cannot hide behind the plea of sub-judice. It is a matter which is in public domain. It is not merely the determination of criminal culpability. People have the right to know the full truth in relation to the circumstances under which this note was written,” Jaitley said.
Taking on Chidambaram, the BJP leader asked why did the “man who was to protect the national exchequer” change his stand on 2G spectrum auction. PTI
Latest India News
