Reference Auto

Home minister P Chidambaram has been embroiled in a controversy after Pranab Mukherjee stated that Chidambaram could have stopped the spectrum auction when he was finance minister, clearly indicating that Chidambaram should be probed for his alleged ignorance in the affairs of the 2G auction and it would also help if the Prime Minister or PM Manmohan Singh comes forward to prove his innocence.

Shouldn’t the Prime Minister be a party to the 2G probe also for not his involvement but for not knowing what his players were doing when he was their captain?

We no doubt have an honest Prime Minister and even Congress president Sonia Gandhi had earlier vouched for his integrity, hitting back at a reporter who questioned how the Prime Minister could have stayed silent when a Rs 1.76 lakh crore loss to the government kitty was discovered just at the backyard.

While vouching for the PM, Sonia retorted, “No one should question the integrity of the Prime Minister.”

But why should someone question the integrity of the Prime Minister? The whole point was missed here.

The question that everyone wants answered is: Why were the PM and the then finance minister (Chidambaram) unaware of dealings which caused such an astronomical loss to the government exchequer?

This issue has brought about a bitter spat between the two ministers (Pranab and Chidambaram) to the fore and also shaken the government and the UPA as a whole.

But the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) didn’t waste time in giving Chidambaram a clean chit. But did the agency investigate the matter (Chidambaram’s silence)?

Moreover, jailed former telecom minister A Raja wants Chidambaram as a witness in the 2G scam case. If Raja and Kanimozhi can go to jail, can’t Chidambaram be brought to the witness box?

This dilly-dallying on part of the UPA government will send a wrong signal to the people.

We have a government here that is trying to prove its honesty and how better to prove it than to allow a transparent and fair probe into the telecom scam.

At a time such a scam has surfaced, the government has tried to clip Anna Hazare’s movement by keeping the PM out of the ambit of the Lokpal Bill.

This has made the public even more wary of the government, especially in the wake of the Prime Minister pleading ignorance in the 2G scam.

With these issues cropping up, if the home minister offers to quit or quits, it could send across a wrong message and people may think he’s actually guilty.

So, how can the government (especially the Prime Minister and the home minister) come clean and prove to the people that they are innocent?

The answer to this is not to clog transparency but to show transparency.

For instance, if the government orders a Joint Parliamentary Committee or JPC probe, which usually comprises myriad parties, including those sitting on the Opposition benches, and if the Prime Minister and home minister come out clean, it would be credible evidence to term them innocent.

So, the government must allow the PM and Chidambaram to come out clean even though the only possible charge they could face is negligence of duty.