Sonia meets PC, Pranab to defuse 2G letter bomb

New Delhi - 26 Sep 2011: In her effort to control the damage done by the controversial 2G note, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday separately met both Home Minister P Chidambaram and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to ascertain their views on the issue.

She met the two top Cabinet ministers days after CNN-IBN first accessed a note by the Finance Ministry to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), which claimed that Chidambaram could have stopped the 2G scam as the then finance minister.

Sonia Gandhi's meeting with Chidambaram lasted for about 30 minutes, during which, the Home Minister explained his point of view on the 2G spectrum allocation issue and reportedly told the Congress President that he does not want to embarrass the party and offered to resign.

Shortly after Chidambaram met Sonia Gandhi, Pranab Mukherjee, who returned from his US tour on Monday itself, went to meet the Congress President.

Before the meeting, Mukherjee reiterated his support for Chidambaram and called the Home Minister a pillar of strength to the UPA Government.

In defence on the controversial 2G note, it has been said that the letter has been prepared by a junior officer and has not much importance, and it was revealed against an RTI, thus doesn't have much legal value.

The Home Minister offered to resign despite the CBI sources on Monday said that the central investigating agency did not find any criminality in the role of the Finance Ministry in the alleged irregularities in the 2G spectrum allocation during Chidambaram's regime.

But the main 2G petitioner, Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy, is pushing for criminal charges against Chidambaram.

Chidambaram's predecessor Jaswant Singh of the BJP has already been questioned, and in case the Supreme Court orders a probe into the role of Chidambaram, his position will become untenable.

The main fear of the Congress is that in case the court orders a probe into the Home Minister's role, it may next order probe into the role of the Prime Minister too.

In case Chidambaram is asked to step down, then the next target for the Opposition could be the Prime Minister.

But the Government will breathe easy in case the court only asks to investigate the matter related to the controversial 2G note.

The Government may also get a week's time to take a stand on the issue, as the matter would come up for discussion after the Dussera vacation.

But, former telecom minister A Raja's lawyer, Sushil Kumar, on Monday told a Delhi court that Union Home Minister P Chidambaram was a party to all the decisions taken in connection with the 2G spectrum allocation. He, however, clarified that he was not making an attempt to present Chidambaram as an accused.

"I am not calling P Chidambaram an accused but he knew everything. He was acquainted with all facts and circumstances of the case," he said.

Raja's lawyer also said that the statement of the Home Minister should have been taken in September 2010 itself.

Kumar asserted that there was no difference of opinion between Raja and Chidambaram, adding that the allocation was a Cabinet decision and that the entire Cabinet must be made to face the trial.

"It was a decision taken by 2003 Cabinet and followed by all subsequent Cabinets. Why is only my client in jail?"

"Call Chidambaram as a witness under Section 311 and let him accept or deny weather he gave the advice in presence of the Prime Minister or not, and then let the court decide if it wants to call the PM," said Sharma.

Earlier on Monday, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed fresh charges in connection with the 2G spectrum allocation scam, seeking life imprisonment for all the accused.

An official Finance Ministry document, accessed by RTI activist Vivek Garg, has cast doubts over the role of Home Minister P Chidambaram, who was then finance minister, in the January 2008 decision of former telecom minister A Raja to issue 2G spectrum licences.

On March 25, 2011, Dr PGS Rao, Deputy Director in the Finance Ministry, sent an office memorandum to Vini Mahajan, Joint Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office, regarding allocation and pricing of 2G spectrum. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee approved the note after personally inspecting the 11-page document.

The note categorically stated that the Department of Telecom (DoT) would have been forced to cancel the 2G licences doled out by Raja, had the Ministry of Finance under Chidambaram, stuck to its original demand for auctioning the initial 'start-up spectrum' of 4.4 megahertz each allotted to the 2008 licensees.

Various official estimates have put the loss to the exchequer due to the 2G allocation on January 10, 2010 somewhere between Rs 50,000 crore to Rs 1,76,000 crore. However, present Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal has gone on record to claim the exchequer suffered no loss on this account.

source: CNN-IBN