After several long months of setbacks, the UPA government and the Congress party at last got something to celebrate in the ongoing 2G spectrum allocation scam. With the CBI special court refusing to include union home minister P Chidambaram in the list of accused persons, the Congress was visibly glad that it survived this scare amidst a high stake election campaign for the Uttar Pradesh assembly.
But the BJP was not in a mood to relent. Party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad insisted there was evidence against Chidambaram, and even if the technicality of his being an accused has not been accepted, his moral culpability for all the wrong doings in the 2G scam is inescapable.
However, the jubilation in the Congress camp was unmistakable. Union ministers Pranab Mukherjee, Kapil Sibal, and Ambika Soni welcomed this exoneration of their ‘valued colleague’ and in separate statements came out strongly against the BJP.
“There was never any case against Chidambaram, and this has been established by the orders of the Supreme Court and the trial court, but the BJP has been flogging this issue,” said Sibal.
Mukherjee’s support for Chidambaram at this juncture has an added political significance against the backdrop of his high-profile feud on the issue of a note emanating from the finance ministry, referring to the then finance minister’s role in the 2G scam.
Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi took a potshot at the BJP for demanding Chidambaram’s resignation. “They have been indulging in calumny, and now they should not only apologise to the nation, but also to the individual ministers they have been defaming,” he added.
The BJP has been targeting Chidambaram even in Parliament, and has been boycotting him. After this decision letting him off in the 2G case, the party is unlikely to review as it has taken a stand that this is the just the order of the first court, and the matter would go to the High Court, and then to the Supreme Court, if necessary.
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