Hours before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's plane touched down here late Tuesday evening, Law Minister Salman Khursheed met Congress president Sonia Gandhi at 10 Janpath to brief her on the legal aspects of the controversial Finance Ministry note to the Prime Minister's Office on the 2G spectrum allocation. It surfaced in a pile of documents accessed through a Right to Information Act petition.
This meeting follows an hour-long discussion Mr. Khursheed and Minister of State in the PMO V. Narayanasamy had with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee late Monday night to discuss the legal implications of the note, and the options before the government in the wake of the controversy. These discussions were held after Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Mr. Mukherjee had separate meetings with the Congress president.
CBI defence
Simultaneously on Tuesday, the government defended Mr. Chidambaram in the Supreme Court, saying there was no need to order a CBI probe into his role in the 2G case, as demanded by petitioner Subramanian Swamy.
On Tuesday, while Mr. Chidambaram attended office in North Block, Mr. Mukherjee flew to Kolkata to be part of the countdown to the annual Durga Puja celebrations — he will return to the capital only on Wednesday evening, when he is likely to meet the Prime Minister.
Clearly, the government and the party were continuing with the preparatory moves to resolve the crisis arising out of the Finance Ministry note, with a final decision awaiting discussions with the Prime Minister. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister and the Congress president will meet ministers and party leaders, party sources said.
The sources told The Hindu that while Ms. Gandhi was clearly equidistant from both Mr. Mukherjee and Mr. Chidambaram in the current issue, within the party it is the Finance Minister who has greater support and sympathy.
Uniformly, on record and off the record, spokespersons of the party and the government have been stressing that there was nothing much in the Finance Ministry note and that it did not in any way implicate Mr. Chidambaram, even as they pointed out that it had been written by a junior official and not by the Finance Minister. On Monday, both Mr. Khursheed and Mr. Narayansamy, who jointly addressed the press, stressed that the note had “no life.”
Congress spokesperson Rashid Alvi also downplayed the controversy: “The cup appears to be hotter than the tea. The tea is not that hot... [Mr.]Chidambaram has committed no mistake. There is no question of his resignation.”
