The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) on Saturday directed the Sports Ministry to provide ‘relevant details' on the letters written by former Union Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar to the Prime Minister Manomhan Singh on his objections to the holding and conduct of the Commonwealth Games in 2010.
A brief statement by the PMO referred to reports in a section of the media contesting the statement made by Dr. Singh at his interaction with a group of editors that Mr. Aiyar's letters were `purely on ideological grounds'.
“The letters written by Shri Mani Shankar Aiyar referred to in the news item in the Mail Today on 2nd July, 2011 are in the public domain. The statement made by the Prime Minister in his interaction with the editors of the newspapers on June 29, 2011 may be seen in context of the contents of the letters. The public may like to draw appropriate conclusions after going through these papers. The Prime Minister has asked the Sports Ministry to provide relevant details in this regard,” the statement noted.
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In response to a question at the interface with the editors Dr. Singh had said that bulk of expenditure on the Commonwealth Games was incurred before 2009 elections and there was nothing the government could do about it. The Prime Minister had said Mr. Aiyar was opposed to spending that much money on hosting the CWG.
On being asked about irregularities and bloated budget on preparations for the Games the Prime Minister said that it was an issue related to the Sports Ministry. “That is the job of his Ministry- to tell us because all the budgets were the responsibility of the Sports Ministry- they had to come to the Cabinet. I have no mechanism in the Prime Minister's Office to look at all the minute details of the budget”.
Dr. Singh contended that Mr. Aiyar did not bring to his notice any irregularities in the spending on preparations for the Games. “At one stage, I did get worried – I did get reports but at that late stage we were able to put some officials under Jarnail Singh to keep a watch. Question is how effective was that supervision. But Kalmadi was there because he was the President of the Indian Olympic Association. The agreement to host the CWG was signed in the year 2003 when the previous government was in power”.
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