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New Delhi: With Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh away in New York, the phone airwaves case
rocked the government again Thursday, this time over a
six-month-old note of the finance ministry that fell just short of
indicting Home Minister P. Chidambaram, sparking a war of words
between the Congress and the opposition over his ouster.
Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seized the opportunity
and sought the immediate resignation of Chidambaram, informed
sources said Manmohan Singh had reassured his home minister of his
trust and spoke with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, also in
the US.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi in the meanwhile was also briefed
on the matter and was expected to take it up when the prime
minister returns to the capital Monday, after attending the UN
General Assembly, Congress sources said.
In a fresh twist to the second generation (2G) spectrum case, a
note to the PMO from the finance ministry in April said the
airwaves could have auctioned in 2008 if Chidambaram, then the
finance minister, had "stuck to his stand".
In the note, the finance ministry says Chidambaram, one of the
government's most high profile ministers, could have prevented
spectrum from being given away at throwaway prices by insisting on
its auction -- alluding that presumptive losses worth thousands of
crores could have thus been avoided.
The note, which was apparently shown to Mukherjee and accessed by
an application under the Right to Information Act, was prepared by
a deputy secretary in the finance ministry and sent to the Prime
Minister's Office March 25.
"This clearly proves the role of P. Chidambaram in the 2G scam. He
is responsible," BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said. "He should
resign himself or he should be dismissed. I demand it strongly."
He sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa echoed the demand and
said in Chennai that the prime minister should axe Chidambaram if
he did not resign on his own.
"The CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) should act against
Chidambaram like it did against Raja," the AIADMK chief told a
news channel.
Even the DMK -- a key ally of the ruling federal coalition and
senior leader and former telecom minister A. Raja in judicial
custody over his alleged role in the 2G case -- joined the chorus
to say Chidambaram's role was never in doubt.
The CPI-M agreed and pressed for a CBI probe.
But the Congress defended Chidambaram and said the opposition's
demand for his resignation was a "mischievous attempt" to create a
rift in the party.
"The party does not doubt his integrity," spokesperson Abhishek
Manu Singhvi said, adding that since Janata Party president
Subramanian Swamy had presented the documents in the Supreme
Court, the matter was sub judice.
"Without waiting for the proceedings to be completed, it is highly
objectionable and inappropriate for Swamy or anyone else to pass
premature judgment on the very same issue on which he is seeking
relief."
Mukherjee, in New York, avoided direct comment on the note from
his ministry but acknowledged such a letter was, indeed,
dispatched to the Prime Minister's Office.
"Today a sensational news item has come and it is through the
exercise of the right to information. A note was sent by the
ministry of finance to the prime minister. Somebody demanded
through the use of right to information to have a copy of that
note," he said.
"And that is being used -- whether legally it can be used or not
is a different story -- but the fact of the matter is, somebody
has produced that as a piece of evidence in a particular case," he
added.
"The matter is sub judice. The court is looking into it."
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