Slamming former Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai after his apology to former Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam, the party on Tuesday demanded that Mr. Rai apologise to the nation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should also join Mr. Rai as he, too, was part of the “sinister plan” to destabilise former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Government, the party said.
“Mr. Rai has joined the elite club of ‘ Maafi Jeevi ’. Does it now not appear that the then CAG was the agent provocateur? He had authored a CAG report that threw a presumptive loss of ₹1.76 lakh crore, a sensational number, to the exchequer in the grant of the 2G spectrum licences. The report was a figment of the imagination and a flight of fancy,” said senior Congress leader Ajay Maken. He was speaking to presspersons in Mumbai.
Mr. Rai could never substantiate the 2G spectrum report, he added.
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Mr. Maken was speaking in the backdrop of an “unconditional” apology from Mr. Rai to Mr. Nirupam on lying about the pressures put vis-à-vis the role of Dr. Singh in the 2G spectrum case.
“The nation must know that the truth has come out and the deep-rooted conspiracy to destabilise and oust Dr. Singh’s Government stands exposed before the people. Let Mr. Modi, Mr. Rai and all the others tender an unconditional apology to the nation and admit to their sinister role,” he said.
Mr. Maken said R.P. Singh, former Director-General, Audit, Post and Telecommunications (P&T), in the CAG, who was the principal 2G spectrum auditor, told the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on 2G spectrum that no loss had been caused to the exchequer. “When he had forwarded these findings to the CAG headquarters [Mr. Rai was then CAG], he was taken off the audit and the findings were changed,” he said.
The Congress leader further demanded that Mr. Rai return to the Government treasury all the facilities that were given to him as a reward or as remuneration subsequent to his retirement.
