Continuing its attack on the government over appointment of former telecom secretary P.J. Thomas as the Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC), the main Opposition BJP on Wednesday alleged that the appointment was done to “cover up” the 2G spectrum scam. The Centre however, dismissed BJP’s allegations saying that Mr Thomas was in no way involved in the 2G spectrum scam and he has an unblemished record.
But BJP claimed that it has “dug up” details about Mr Thomas’s role in keeping corruption watchdogs like the CVC and CAG away from probe into 2G spectrum allocation irregularities.
Circulating a document to the media, BJP spokesperson, Prakash Javadekar said, “This note from DoT raises a query before the law ministry in which they are saying that spectrum allocation is a matter of policy and as such, the CAG and CVC have no role to play in the inquiry into the 2G spectrum scam.”
He said the note moved from eight tables in just three days. “Everybody opined in favour of this note and even the law minister immediately complied with the fraudulent query opining “in affirmative with the note as this is the policy matter there is no role for CVC and CAG”, the BJP leader said.
Charging the UPA with “undermining” institutes like CAG and CVC, Mr Javdekar said the ruling party was using terms like “policy matter” to “conveniently cover up” the 2G spectrum scam and other issues.
Pointing out that telecom minister A. Raja has time and again in his defence claimed that he was working under the guidance of the Prime Minister, Mr Javdekar said, “He also made the Prime Minister a co-accused in the worst scam.”
“In the light of all this revelation, the BJP would like to know from the government that when it did not make money from the 2G spectrum allocation as projected, then why did it recently auction the 3G spectrum?” Mr Javdekar asked.
The BJP had on Tuesday boycotted the swearing-in ceremony of Mr Thomas and Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj met President Pratibha Devisingh Patil to protest against his appointment.
Meanwhile, government sources disclosed that Ms Swaraj, who is a member of the three-member committee along with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and home minister P. Chidambaram to select the CVC, had agreed with the government’s logic that Mr Thomas was cleared in the inquiries before his actual appointment and there was no question of any blemish on him.