BJP salvo on Manmohan after Vinod Rai comment

BJP says accusations merit a response from the former PM as well as Congress party

Former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai’s comment that former prime minister Manmohan Singh cannot shirk his responsibility in the 2G telecom and coal block allocation scams gave the Bharatiya Janata Party an opportunity on Friday to attack the Congress for having run a scam-ridden government at the Centre for 10 years.

Information & Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar held a press conference at the BJP headquarters —a rarity since the BJP formed the government — to say Rai’s “serious” revelations merited a response from the former PM, as well as the Congress.

A defensive Congress asked Rai why he didn’t file a first information report, if pressure had been brought upon him not to name Singh in the CAG audit reports on 2G and coal block allocation. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi attributed political motives to Rai's remarks. Singhvi termed comments by Rai to be nothing but "rejected allegations primarily made by Subramanian Swamy", which did not stand the scrutiny of the Supreme Court and the special CBI court.

In more embarrassment to the Congress, senior leader Kamal Nath seemed to echo the former CAG. Kamal Nath, one of the few Congressmen to have won their Lok Sabha seat, claimed that he had alerted Singh over the irregularities in 2G allocations. "I did write a letter to the PM warning him of the allocations in 2G. It is in government files," Kamal Nath said.

On Thursday, Rai in his comments in an interview to a television channel said that integrity is not just financial but intellectual and professional. The barb was aimed at Manmohan Singh. Rai, whose loss estimates in 2G spectrum and coal block allocations pushed the then UPA government into a corner also claimed that then Congress MPs, including Sandeep Dikshit, Sanjay Nirupam and Ashwani Kumar, had sought to put pressure on him to keep the Prime Minister's name out of the said CAG reports. Rai said that 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."

"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?" Rai said. The former auditor has recounted this in his book 'The Diary of the Nation's Conscience Keeper - Not Just An Accountant'.

The Congress spokesperson suggested that the former chief auditor was in league with the BJP. Singhvi also wondered as to why Rai has not uttered a word on serious strictures passed by the CAG in Gujarat against the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

While the Congress spokesperson accused Rai of showing "unsatiated hunger for publicity" before the launch of his new book, former party MPs Sanjay Nirupam and Sanjay Dikshit, who were accused by Rai of putting pressure on him, demanded an apology from him and threatened to drag him to the court.

In his book, the former top auditor has also raised concerns over CBI being under the "direct control" of the Prime Minister. He has said that "a police dominated" agency can't enjoy autonomy or independence available to the CAG or the Election Commission.

Rai, the chief auditor from 2008 to 2013, has said in his book that CBI "can certainly be decoupled from the direct control of the Minister for Personnel or the Prime Minister."