Internal wrangles may have put PM in a spot

On a day when rumours that the Prime Minister had quit in the wake of the Supreme Court’s observations about his ‘silence’ on the 2G scam contributed to a slide in stock markets, Manmohan Singh told the world he was still firmly in the saddle.

Singh replaced his lawyer and brought in the government’s best legal brains — Home Minister P Chidambaram and new Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal — for advice.

Pointedly, Law Minister Veerappa Moily was only marginally involved in the PM’s defence, widely seen as significant in light of the forthcoming Cabinet reshuffle. Moily said the lawyer was changed to ensure the PM was “properly represented”.

The PM, legal sources outside the government hinted, might have been an unwitting victim of a power struggle in the government’s legal set up. Attorney-General Goolam E Vahanvati has replaced Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam as the PM’s lawyer.

As they also wear political hats, both Sibal and Chidambaram were present at the party’s core committee meeting on Thursday when the Congress brass held a threadbare discussion on the legal and political challenges of the 2G spectrum issue.

A top legal brain of the party today pointed out that the PM had a strong defence against the apex court’s concern over the long time taken to sanction prosecution of a minister in his government, A Raja.

“The PM had already initiated a CBI probe into the issue. The agency is yet to give a report. How can the PM sanction prosecution against a minister without a probe report?” asked a UPA manager. Moily said as the case was before the Supreme Court, the PM had been asked not to speak on the matter in Parliament.

The Congress also geared up its defence of the PM, with party General Secretary Rahul Gandhi saying, “I don’t think he is in an embarrassing position at all.” Gandhi also denied reports about the PM’s offer to resign, saying, “I have not heard anything like that.”

As Vahanvati has been asked to represent Singh in the case, Subramanium — who held the brief for the PM at the last hearing — will only represent the department of telecommunications in the case.

Subramanium, however, refused to read much into this. "It is not a question of replacement, but of better coordination," he said. Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily said, "There is no change in government representation. Now, it is a different case. Since the Solicitor-General was present, he represented (the PM). Now we are making a pucca case."

This implies the earlier case was not pucca.

The Supreme Court had asked the PM to file an affidavit regarding the delay in sanctioning the prosecution of Raja in the spectrum case.