BJP slams PM for protecting minister

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Prime VIP
New Delhi: India's principal opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday hit out at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for shielding his home minister P. Chidambaram in the 2G spectrum allocation case.
Reacting to Prime Minister's statement that Chidambaram continued to enjoy his confidence while he served as the finance minister and now as the home minister, the BJP wondered why Singh was so keen on retaining Chidambaram whose culpability was evident in the 2008 2G spectrum allocation scam.
"Is your [PM's] confidence in your colleagues more important, or, a fair, transparent investigation?" BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad asked.
According to BJP, any attempt to shield Chidambaram further would only tarnish the government's image further.

A March note prepared by the Finance Ministry, now headed by Pranab Mukherjee, had stated that Chidambaram could have stopped allocation of 2G spectrum at low prices.
The 2G spectrum allocation cost the exchequer an estimated Rs1.85 trillion (Dh130 billion). The then telecom minister A. Raja and several others are already in jail.
Double standards
BJP wants the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which is probing the 2G spectrum allocation scam to probe Chidambaram and lambasted CBI for double standards, saying while the CBI wanted to interrogate Jaswant Singh who served as the finance minister while BJP was in power in the past, it is making no attempt to question Chidambaram.
The BJP spokesman pointed out that while the then finance secretary D. Subbarao raised concerns that spectrum was being allocated at 2001 prices, Chidambaram wrote to the Prime Minister's Office within four days of the allocation to treat the chapter as closed.
The finance ministry in its March 25 note to the PMO said that Chidambaram could have prevented spectrum being allocated at throwaway prices by insisting on its auction. The 11-page note was cleared by the incumbent finance minister Pranab Mukherjee.
 
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