New Delhi, Sept 22: Unfazed by Opposition demand for his resignation, Government and Congress today threw their weight behind Home Minister P Chidambaram dismissing a note by Finance Ministry to the PMO on 2G issue, which has sparked a controversy, as “a junior officer's subjective judgement”.
“A note of finance ministry is not a note by Finance Minister. It's an ex-post facto evaluation not a verdict. It is a junior officer's subjective judgement.
“If you take a note written by a junior officer in March 2011 out of the leaf and read it without seeing what happened before or after it, facts will definitely get distorted,” party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi told reporters in reply to a volley of questions on the issue.
I&B Minister Ambika Soni and Law Minister Salman Khurshid spoke in similar vein and said there could be “no question mark” on Chidambaram.
“... there is no question mark whatsoever...nothing of questionable nature on the conduct of (then Finance Minister) P Chidambaram ...I can say this with full authority. He deserves the support of the government,” Khurshid said.
Dismissing claims of a rift within the government over the Finance Ministry's “secret” note to the PMO, she said, “there is nothing contentious, nothing new, nothing revealing in the letter that should excite anybody.”
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also called Chidambaram from Frankfurt and is understood to have expressed full faith in his integrity, a day after the note submitted to the Supreme Court by Janata party leader Subramanian kicked up a political storm.
The note suggested that the 2G scam could have been avoided if the Finance Ministry, then under Chidambaram, had insisted on spectrum allocation through auction. PTI
