There was no let-up in the war of words between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress on Monday.
Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram at first attacked the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi as a promoter of crony capitalism and big business, big “spelt with a capital B, capital I and capital G,” dismissed theformer Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha’s 18-point questionnaire as “puerile,” and said that the latter’s stewardship of the Finance Ministry was “hopefully a distant memory.”
The BJP instantly hit back, saying the “biggest scams” took place under the UPA government because of “crony capitalism” by the “Congress in general and Mr Chidambaram’s in particular.”
“The 2G spectrum pricing was done by Mr. Chidambaram along with A. Raja despite the opposition of officials and advisers. It was the biggest scam and he was the biggest patron. The Aircel Maxis deal, which is currently under CBI investigation, is a textbook case of crony capitalism and Coalgate is the biggest example of how fly-by-night operators got licences,” senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
