Pranab Mukherjee to return to Delhi, meet PM

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday said he will be back in Delhi on Wednesday and speak to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh before commenting on the row over his ministry's note on 2G spectrum.

"The prime minister is coming back this evening. I am going back to Delhi on Wednesday evening. After talking to the prime minister, if anything is to be told in respect of the finance ministry note, (I will say)," Mukherjee told reporters at Kolkata airport.

"Yesterday I said that as long as the prime minister is outside India, I would not like to make any comment on the finance ministry note which has been placed before the (Supreme) Court."

Mukherjee's remarks come in the wake of the controversy created by his ministry's note, which has sparked renewed demands for the resignation of Home Minister P Chidambaram.

The note to the PMO from the Finance Ministry says the airwaves could have been auctioned in 2008 if Chidambaram, who was then the finance minister, had "stuck to his stand".

Mukherjee met Manmohan Singh Sunday in New York. Later, he called Chidambaram a "valued colleague". On returning to India, he met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.