The Congress party on Friday made a frenetic bid to salvage its battered image by ruing ?the rise in graft and greed? even as it threw its weight behind Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who was taken to task by the Supreme Court for his alleged inaction in the 2G spectrum scandal. While party chief Sonia Gandhi spoke of the ?shrinking of the moral universe? in a dynamic economy, Rahul Gandhi said he did not believe that the PM was in an embarrassing position at all.
The Prime Minister?s Office (PMO) turned to attorney general GE Vahanvati to represent the PM in the SC. The apex court, in an unprecedented move on Thursday, insisted that the PMO must file an affidavit on behalf of Singh by Saturday giving details of how the PMO responded to a September 2008 petition to prosecute A Raja who resigned as telecom minister recently.
The UPA government also showed its determination not to cede further ground to the Opposition which has been attacking it both in Parliament and outside, by reiterating that no joint parliamentary committee (JPC) would be set up to probe the 2G spectrum scandal. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said that Parliament?s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is in some form a ?permanent JPC?, was well-suited to investigate the matter.
The Congress decided, at its core group meeting on Friday, that it would take this much and no further on the corruption allegations by the Opposition. ?Ceding more ground after the resignation of a chief minister and a Cabinet minister is out of the question. The shift of focus by the Opposition on to the Prime Minister will be countered aggressively,? said a senior Congress leader who attended the meeting.
Speaking at the 10th Indira Gandhi conference in New Delhi, Sonia Gandhi admitted that ?there is a rise in graft and greed.? The dynamic economy, she said, had led to ?a shrinking of the moral universe.?
Perhaps alluding to the impaired reputations of investigating agencies in India, she said: ?The broad mass of people must believe in the fairness of the system, if it is to survive.?
Congressmen are interpreting Gandhi’s speech as an acknowledgment that graft was now the biggest challenge facing the Congress party and the government. ?After losing one chief minister and a Cabinet minister, not to mention the CWG scam, Sonia Gandhi’s speech also means that the Congress will be acting aggressively on these issues in future. Some have irreparably damaged the reputation of the government,? said a senior Congress leader.
New telecom minister Kapil Sibal held a press conference and defended the Prime Minister over his alleged ?inaction? after complaints made by Subramanian Swamy. ?The Prime Minister is a man of integrity; I do not think anyone in this country believes that he was trying to circumvent the law,? he said.
Sibal and home minister P Chidambaram are keeping a close watch on the progress of Swamy’s petition in the Supreme Court, using their legal acumen for what is perceived to be one of the biggest political challenges faced by the government.
The government’s posture in Parliament was also aggressive and it seemed to have made up its mind to deny the opposition anymore satisfaction over its troubles. ?The core committee also decided that we would not concede a JPC probe as demanded by the Opposition. We have decided to take a cue from the PMO’s reply to the Supreme Court on Tuesday,? said a senior minister.