Give 'relevant details' on Mani Shankar Aiyar's letters, PM tells sports minister

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the sports ministry for "relevant details" regarding the letters written by former sports minister Mani Shankar Aiyar on last year's Commonwealth Games.

"The letters written by Shri Mani Shankar Aiyar referred to in a news item... are in the public domain... The prime minister has asked the sports ministry to provide relevant details in this regard," a statement from the prime minister's office said today.

The statement also made a reference to Singh's remarks on the subject during his interaction with the editors recently.

"...Mani Shankar Aiyar wrote to me, but he wrote to me on purely ideological grounds -- he was opposed to spending that much money on hosting the Commonwealth Games," Singh had said during the interaction.

To a query from the editors about the bloating budget for the sporting event, the prime minister had said, "That is the job of his ministry -- to tell us because all the budgets were the responsibility of the sports ministry --they had to come to the cabinet. I have no mechanism in the prime minister's office to look at all the minute details of the budget.

Mani Shankar Aiyar wrote many letters to me. These letters were all on ideological opposition to spend so much money on the Commonwealth Games, we should be doing more in other sectors. He did not bring to me anything wrong that was being done."

Today's statement also said that the public may like to draw appropriate conclusions after going through these papers.