New Delhi/Chandigarh:Two days after the UPA government sought to douse the flames of a row over a finance ministry note that put Home Minister P Chidambaram in a spot, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) member who recommended on file the CBI probe into the 2G scam, has now revealed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was \"upset\" soon after the Commission ordered the CBI probe.
\"Pratyush Sinha (then CVC) told me that PM is very upset,\" Sudhir Kumar, then Vigilance Commissioner, confided in Daily Post, from New Delhi, on Friday. \"\'Why should PM be upset,\' I queried. I told the CVC if any clarification is needed, the PM could call us and we could go together and explain,\" he added.
Ever since the 2G scam broke out, the Prime Minister\'s role has been under a cloud, with the Opposition demanding an inquiry against him and some of his Cabinet colleagues from the Congress. The then Telecom Minister, A Raja, who is presently in Tihar jail, too, has been seeking to put the onus on the PMO.
It may be mentioned that Kumar, one of the then three Vigilance Commission members, had moved the file for a CBI probe after he realised \"there was serious criminality involved\" and the matter should be taken up for criminal investigation. \"I prepared the final draft recommending a direct probe by the CBI, and sent the file to the CVC,\" Kumar said. The CBI probe was ordered by the CVC after it encountered several attempts by the Union Telecom Ministry to stonewall any investigations.
\"Since the matter was of serious nature (as the involvement of a sitting telecom minister was also suspected), besides sending it to the CBI director, we forwarded a copy of the recommendation to the Cabinet Secretary too,\" the commissioner said. \"I was told everyone was upset. My hunch then was it was not the PM himself telling that (to Sinha)…it was the Cabinet Secretary,\" he added.
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Manish Tiwari (courtesy DailyPost,2nd oct,2011),
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