Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is cutting short his Washington visit and rushing to New York to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, amid the storm over his ministry’s note on the 2G issue. Sources said the meeting was for “obvious” reasons. Back home, in a move that could further embarrass the United Progressive Alliance government, the public accounts committee (PAC) and the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) have decided to write to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), asking for the note written by the finance ministry to the PMO on the spectrum issue.
At the PAC meeting on Friday, parliamentarians of opposition parties said since the report on 2G spectrum allocation scam, prepared by the last PAC, was returned by Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, the committee must ask for the note written by the finance ministry to the PMO to continue the probe. “It has been decided that PAC chairman Murli Manohar Joshi would write to the PMO and the finance ministry for the note to be sent to the parliamentary committee.
It is a very important note, and it completely contradicts the previous stand of the Union government,” said a senior PAC member.
In the course of the PAC meeting, Congress party members, Sanjay Nirupam and Saifuddin Soz, who were present at the meeting, were quiet and didn’t object to the demand. “Both Sanjay Nirupam and Saifuddin Soz were quiet when PAC members demanded Murli Manohar Joshi write to the PMO and the finance ministry to send a copy of the note,” the PAC member added.
The controversy involving home minister P Chidambaram and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee erupted after a finance ministry note suggested the telecom ministry could have conducted an auction of 2G spectrum licences, had the then-finance minister, P Chidambaram, insisted on it. The finance ministry had sent a detailed 10-page note to the PMO in March.
To add to the woes of the Union government, the JPC, which is also investigating the 2G spectrum allocation scam, is also writing to the PMO, asking for the note so that it could be taken up during the meeting on September 27. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is also expected to return to India from New York on September 27.
“We don’t have a copy of the note sent by the finance Ministry to the PMO. This is an important piece of document, and we are in the process of writing to the PMO to send the note to the parliamentary committee,” said a senior JPC member.