New Delhi:
It's been a week of all-nighters for the Congress as the ruling party tries to find a way to wriggle out of the 2G note mess. Top-level huddles continue - late last night, three ministers met Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, hours after he wrote an explanation to the Prime Minister detailing the hows and whys of the controversial note sent out from his ministry on the allocation of spectrum earlier this year.
The note that has wrought the tempest was sent in March to Dr Manmohan Singh's office and suggests that when India's telecom scam unfolded in 2008, P Chidambaram, who was then Finance Minister, could have over-ruled A Raja and insisted that valuable spectrum be auctioned. Mr Raja was Telecom Minister at the time, and is now in jail for engineering the telecom or 2G scam, named after the frequency involved. Ever since the note became public last week, there have been demands for Home Minister P Chidambaram's resignation.
There was no official word on what transpired at the late-night meeting of the four ministers when Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal, Minister in the PMO V Narayanasamy and MoS, Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Shukla visited Mr Mukherjee's residence; the Finance Minister has steadfastly refused to speak on the matter till he has first held discussions with the Prime Minister. Asked about the letter he wrote to the PM yesterday, Mr Mukherjee just offered a terse, "Correspondence between PM and ministers I believe is confidential."
But in the letter that he sent yesterday to both the PM and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, sources say, Pranab Mukherjee has refused to accept blame for the note sent by his Finance Ministry in March.
He has described the controversial document sent by a bureaucrat in his office as "a background note" which had inputs from many ministries, as also the Prime Minister's Office and the Cabinet Secretary. Sources say that Mr Mukherjee has said in his new letter that the document should be seen not as a Finance Ministry note but as an "inter-ministerial background paper." Mr Mukherjee's assertion could provoke new embarrassment for Mr Chidambaram - it could be interpreted that other ministries also wondered if Mr Chidambaram had been assertive enough in dealing with Mr Raja, who from all accounts, was determined to avoid an auction of second-generation or 2G spectrum.
Some reports suggest the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) looking into the 2G scam has asked for a copy of the letter Mr Mukherjee wrote to the PM and Sonia Gandhi. The JPC has also asked Joint Secretary-level officers from all concerned ministries, including the Prime Minister's Office, to give an undertaking that all relevant documents related to the 2G spectrum allocation have been furnished.
The lack of an auction is believed to be one of the key decisions that Mr Raja took to help companies win mobile network licenses at dizzyingly low prices. Mr Raja was forced to resign as Telecom Minister in November last year; he was arrested in February and has been in Tihar Jail since.
Apart from writing the letter of explanation, sources say Mr Mukherjee also called Mr Chidambaram on Wednesday - their second phone conversation since the letter-bomb exploded last week. In recent days, Mr Mukherjee has described Mr Chidambaram as a "valued colleague" and "a pillar of strength to the government."
On his flight back to India from the US on Tuesday evening, the Prime Minister said "there are no dissensions in my Cabinet."
But the attempts to dispel the notion of a rift between the two senior ministers have been largely unsuccessful. Sources say that Mr Chidambaram told the PM on the phone last week that the note against him is part of an orchestrated campaign within the government to discredit him.
The Prime Minister is expected to meet both ministers soon to discuss the 2G storm. Mr Chidambaram attended a lunch hosted on Wednesday by the PM for Tony Blair. Sources say the minister was among the earliest to leave.
On record, the Finance Ministry's document against Mr Chidambaram states that it was "seen by" Mr Mukherjee. The Opposition has said this proves that even his own government is dissatisfied with how Mr Chidambaram handled the telecom scam. Therefore, the BJP says, Mr Chidambaram must resign or be fired, and stand investigation for his alleged complicity in Mr Raja's telecom scam. "There is no difference between what A Raja and Chidambaram did," said the BJP's Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday.
The politically inflammatory note was accessed through a Right to Information application, and presented last week in the Supreme Court. For the Opposition, it is the gift that keeps on giving. For the government, it is a Public Relations nightmare. For months, India has confronted a series of scams orchestrated by those in power. While the Prime Minister's own honesty and integrity have not been tainted, the allegations that he was permissive of corruption in his government have been growing. The PM said last night that the Opposition was trying to weaken the government in an attempt to force early elections.
"We don't have the numbers to destabilise the government, and we don't need to do so," said the BJP's Arun Jaitley. He added that the UPA government had a crisis of leadership and would collapse under the weight of its "own contradictions and under the liability of its own image."