New Delhi: Former CAG Vinod Rai’s remark that he was “pressurised” by the erstwhile UPA government to drop certain names from his reports yesterday drew sharp reactions from the Congress and the BJP.
While the Congress questioned why ex-Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Rai did not make the revelations while he was in office, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said “skeleton of the Congress’s corruption” was now tumbling out.
Rai told a newspaper on Saturday that United Progressive Alliance (UPA) functionaries had sent certain politicians to him who demanded that he not include certain names in his reports on the Coalgate and the Commonwealth Games scams.
He refused to talk to reporters yesterday. He also seconded the allegations made by earlier media advisor Sanjay Baru and former minister Natwar Singh, who both wrote in their memoirs that ex-prime minister Manmohan Singh did not wield real power in the erstwhile UPA government.
BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said: “It is now shamelessly evident that the Congress had indulged in vast loot of public money and they tried to shield their ministers.
The former CAG chief, who demitted office last year, had estimated a “notional” loss of Rs1.76 lakh crore in the 2G spectrum allocation and Rs1.86 lakh crore in the coal block allocation.
Both the alleged scams severely dented the reputation of the UPA government.
IANS
