Sudhanshu Trivedi condemns Congress over former CAG's claims

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sudhanshu Trivedi today took the Congress party to task over former CAG Vinod Rai's explosive claims that coalition functionaries had deputed politicians to get him to leave out names from the audit reports in the Coalgate and Commonwealth Games scam

Sudhanshu Trivedi told ANI, "As far as what Vinod Rai has said in his book, if you look at the previous track record of this UPA government, this was the government which has given a wrong affidavit in the Coalgate when the entire indication of involvement of PMO was there. And afterwards when Supreme Court has asked for the files, they said the files were missing."

"This shows the lowest level of moral authority and the deepest level of involvement in corruption and the blatant cover up of that corruption. So in this background whatever CAG says seems correct," he added.

Congress leader Manish Tewari, however, described the claims as yet another instance of sensationalism by the former CAG and wondered why these facts were never brought to light into public domain earlier.

Tewari told ANI, "Sensationalism has been a staple of the former CAG, therefore, after putting sensational numbers out in the public space, which completely vitiated the public discourse from 2010 to 2014, now you have this latest bout of sensationalism. Was it not incumbent upon the former CAG to put those facts into public domain to bring into notice of the country, to bring it to the notice to the public accounts committee?"

In his upcoming book 'Not just an Accountant', the former CAG has reportedly criticized former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and accused him of running from his responsibilities. In his yet to be published book, he has given details of Congress Party's response to the multiple scams unearthed during his tenure as the CAG.

According to reports, the former CAG has also claimed that UPA functionaries had roped in even his colleagues in the IAS, to which he belonged before his appointment as CAG, to persuade him to leave out names.