New Delhi:
P Chidambaram did not blink today when he was asked if he had offered to resign at the height of what's known as the 2G note controversy. "I have a short memory," the Home Minister said at a press briefing, "I do not remember whether I offered to resign."
The BJP, which has been asking for his resignation everyday, is unlikely to be amused. But the joke, however weak it was, reinforces what Mr Chidambaram said last evening at a different press briefing - one where he stood side-by-side with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. "The matter is closed," Mr Chidambaram had said, clarifying that he "accepted" Mr Mukherjee's explanation of the 2G note that had provoked demands for Mr Chidambaram to be sacked from the cabinet.
The note in question was sent by Mr Mukherjee's ministry to the Prime Minister's Office in March this year. It was meant, according to the Finance Minister, to serve as "an inter-ministerial background paper" that would help the government to prepare a coordinated response to the many questions that were being hurled in and outside court on the telecom scam.
A part of the note suggested that Mr Chidambaram, who was Finance Minister in 2008, did not exercise his authority to enforce that spectrum was auctioned by A Raja, who was then Telecom Minister. Instead of auctioning second-generation or 2G spectrum, Mr Raja chose to bundle the frequency into cheap mobile network licenses that he allegedly gave out-of-turn to companies that were ineligible.
Those decisions have landed Mr Raja in jail.
The 2G note presented to the Opposition a spectacular opportunity to cash in on the fact that a section of his own government had faulted Mr Chidambaram for not doing enough to reign in Mr Raja. The BJP said that "Mr Chidambaram belongs in the same cell as Mr Raja." Today, at its national executive meet in Delhi, the BJP repeated that argument. The party's Ravi Shankar Prasad said the government was sheltering the Home Minister despite "voluminous evidence of his culpability" in the telecom scam.
The note was released by the Prime minister's Office in response to a Right to Information application. It was submitted last week in the Supreme Court, which is monitoring the CBI's investigation into the telecom scam. The note ripped the lid off what's one of the Congress' worst-kept secrets - a mistrust between two of its most senior ministers. "The government is at war with itself," alleged a triumphant BJP. The Prime Minister differed, stressing "there are no dissensions within my cabinet." But sources say privately, both Mr Chidambaram and Mr Mukherjee were angry. In a phone conversation, the Home Minister allegedly said that the note against him was part of an orchestrated campaign conceived within the government to discredit him. Mr Mukherjee, for his part, was upset about his ministry being held responsible for the note - it was prepared, he pointed out, with inputs from several ministries; moreover, he is believed to have stressed to Sonia Gandhi and the Pm, the note entered the public domain via the Prime Minister's Office and not his department.
Last evening, as the two ministers appeared together to prove the controversy had been resolved, Mr Mukherjee stressed that the note had inferences that did not reflect his views.