 "Kamal Nath says warned Manmohan on 2G allocation")
Senior Congress party leader and former Parliamentary Affairs minister Kamal Nath on Friday confirmed that he had warned Singh about the 2G spectrum allocations.
"I did write a letter to the PM warning him of the allocations in 2G. It is already in the government files," the Congress leader told television channel CNN-IBN.
Nath was reacting to former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai's claim that the Congress veteran had warned the PM about the manner in which 2G spectrum allocations were being made.
More From This Section
"I quoted Kamal Nath writing to the prime minister and expressing concerns about the development in the sector. I have written about the finance ministry expressing concerns, I have written about the law ministry expressing concerns. Now, all these things went to the prime minister," Rai said in an interiview to television channel Times Now on Thursday night.
In the meantime, Congress leaders have started to rebut Rai's claims about pressure from Congress leaders to keep Singh's name out of the 2G and CWG scan audit reports.
Congress leader Manish Tewari defended Singh saying that he has nothing to answer for in the scams. "In so far as the 2G case is concerned, the developments in the telecom sector between 1995 and 2009 were looked at extensively by the joint parliamentary committee. The committee in its report has debunked the theory that was put out by the then CAG. There is nothing that Manmohan Singh has to answer for," Tewari said.
P C Chacko, a Congress leader from Kerala who is close to the Gandhi family, said it is unfair on Rai's part to accuse Singh, and that the former CAG is giving a one-sided story to the various scams that have surfaced.
"It is unfair on the part of ex-CAG Vinod Rai to harp on the same thing, knowing he is accusing a person whose public life is spotless. There were several letters sent by A Raja to Dr. Singh and they were also replied to. But Vinod Rai is not mentioning all of that. He is giving a one-sided story," Chacko said.
Rai had on Thursday opened a veritable can of worms in his interview, alleging that at least three Congress leaders -- Ashwini Kumar, Sanjay Nirupam, and Sandeep Dikshit -- had tried to pressure him to keep then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's name out of audit reports.
Rai came out with a stinging criticism of Singh, saying integrity is not just financial but intellectual and professional too.
Rai, whose loss estimates in 2G spectrum and coal block allocations pushed the then UPA government into a corner, was also critical of the coalition politics under Singh and alleged that he was more interested in remaining in power.
"Integrity is not just financial; it is intellectual integrity; it is professional integrity. You have an oath of allegiance to the constitution and that is important," he told Outlook magazine.
"The buck stops at the PM's desk in any parliamentary democracy. He is the CEO of the country. He can stop, or he can initiate, both. I have written in the book that he probably chose not to stop," the former Comptroller and Auditor General said.
Asked if the 2G spectrum scam could have happened without active involvement of the then prime minister, Rai said: "No, that's exactly why I have said that if he had put his foot down, probably the fate and the course of UPA 2 would have been different."
"If he had put his foot down and stopped this process from unfolding. It could have been any other process, we are not prescribing a process, it could have been any other process, but this process was faulty in a large number of ways. And the government has also accepted that rules and regulations were not being followed, goalposts had been shifted," he contended.
He said some ministers in Manmohan Singh's cabinet had been writing to the former PM about problems in the telecom sector.
"I found that minister of his own council who were writing to him again and again, saying that problems are (there) or there is talk about developments in the telecom sector.
He also claimed that Singh had given only a "template reply" to letter written to him by by former communications minister A. Raja of the DMK.
He was also asked what his understanding of the former PM's psychology was, considering that many revered him as an elder statesman.
Rai replied that "you cannot have the nation being subjugated to the state and the state being a coalition of political parties. The belief was that good politics makes good economics too. But does good politics mean just staying in power?"
Rai, who is writing a book on his days as head of Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) titled Not Just An Accountant, said his phone was tapped by the then UPA government and he felt Singh was part of the decisions to allocate 2G telecom spectrum on first-cum-first serve basis and coal blocks without auction.
"...In 2G and coal there is no way he (Singh) can shirk responsibility. In 2G all the letters written by (then telecom Minister) A Raja were to him and he was replying to those letters. I got no reply to any letter I wrote to him," Rai told the channel."On one occasion when I called on him, the PM said I hope you don't expect a reply from me, whereas he was replying to Raja twice a day. So how can he be not held responsible for the onus of that decision?"
Recalling that Singh had on November 16, 2010 told him that the figure of Rs 1.76 lakh crore 2G loss was not the right way of computing, Rai said he had replied "'Sir, these are the econometric methods that you have taught us'. This was sitting on the stage of Vigyan Bhavan".