As wickets fall, Cong braces to hit back on scams

With the exit of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader A Raja from the Union government in the wake of the massive telecom scam and President Pratibha Patil accepting his resignation late on Monday evening, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is likely to table the CAG report on the 2G spectrum controversy in Parliament on Tuesday.

Union Human Resources and Development Minister Kapil Sibal has been given additional charge of the telecom portfolio. Just last week he had also been entrusted with the temporary charge of the science and technology ministry after Prithviraj Chavan donned the cap of Maharashtra CM following the ouster of Ashok Chavan, whose name surfaced in the Adarsh Society scam in Mumbai.

Kapil Sibal was told by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh himself before lunch on Monday that he would be handling the telecom portfolio and even though he had not been officially notified by the Rashtrapti Bhawan, he informally took charge and began to meet the secretaries and the two ministers of state for communications to understand the legal aspects of the case since the Supreme Court is already hearing the case, which was on Monday adjourned till Tuesday.

Detailed arguments are on over Raja. Sources said that Sibal had handled a number of telecom related cases in the past and was not a novice as far as the subject and the various issues concerned were involved.

Sources said that a number of papers related to the 2G spectrum had the signature of the prime minister and these papers could lead to a lot of other questions being asked, which is probably why the prime minister decided to give the telecom portfolio to a legal brain from the ruling Congress party rather to another DMK leader.

It must be remembered that at the time when the 2G spectrum licenses were given by Raja, there was no Group of Ministers on the issue. The prime minister and his office were directly handling the matter.

It was only after the 2G 'mess' came to light that the prime minister set up a GOM under Pranab Mukherjee to oversee the issue.

A Raja has been consistently claiming that he only went by the recommendations of the Telecom and Regulatory Authority of India as well as saying that the prime minister was in the know of the decisions which were taken.

Sources said that A Raja is himself a smart lawyer and that he has in possession photocopies of all the letters and documents which were exchanged with the PM and PMO.

Despite the prime minister ensuring the resignation of Raja over the 2G spectrum controversy, Parliament could not function on Monday as the combined opposition insisted that a Joint Parliamentary Committee should be set up so that the corruption charges can be properly probed.

But the government has said a firm no on the issue of setting up a JPC. Pranab Mukherjee said that the Public Accounts Committee which is headed by senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Murli Manohar Joshi is fully competent to go into the matter.

The CAG report on telecom which was sent to the President by the finance minister has now been returned by the President is now ready to be tabled on the floor of Parliament.

It is learnt that Pranab Mukherjee would table the report as early as on Tuesday, after which it would go to the PAC which can examine it in detail and the government also wants a discussion on the CAG report on the floor of the House.

Union Sports Minister M S Gill would also make a statement on the Commonwealth Games scam, now that two trusted aides of Games Organising Committee chief Suresh Kalmadi have been arrested on corruption charges.

Pranab Mukherjee has called a luncheon meeting of leaders of all parties to discuss the running of the House and to urge them to let Parliament run smoothly as the government wants a discussion on the CAG report on telecom.

Now that Raja has quit, Congress would like to put BJP on the mat on the issue. The government has carefully studied the year 2000 telecom report of CAG which details the activities of the BJP ministers in telecom department and this is likely to be raised.

A Congress leader said that in 1988 the then Comptroller and Auditor General T N Chaturvedi pressed a 'damning' CAG report on the Bofors scam against former PM Rajiv Gandhi and others, and just the next year in 1989 he became a BJP MP, after which he was made a Governor by the National Democratic Alliance government.

He said 'it was years before the names of many of those who were named were cleared, some died on the way but there was no apology from the then CAG for what he had written.'

Meanwhile, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi has taken a tough stand on the issue of corruption and said that the government would act tough with anyone found to be corrupt.

At the speed with which the Congress and the United Progressive Alliance wickets are falling, there is no way of saying when and where will it stop.