Ex-CAG claimed Manmohan Singh was aware of scams

Former Comptroller and Accountant General (CAG) Vinod Rai claimed on Thursday that Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was aware of the controversial decisions made around the allocation of coal blocks and 2G spectrums that led to massive losses to the state exchequer.

Ex-CAG also claimed that he had been pressurize by some Congress leaders to keep the name of Manmohan Singh out of audit reports.

Rai’s comments are his first direct attack against Singh who has so far denied knowledge of the decisions made by his ministers, scandals that rocked his premiership and contributed to the ouster of the Congress party-led UPA government in the April-May Lok Sabha elections.

He said, “In 2G all the letters written by A Raja were to him and he was replying to those letters. I got no reply to any letter I wrote to him. On one occasion when I called on him, the PM said I hope you don’t expect a reply from me, whereas he was replying to Raja twice a day. So how can he be not held responsible for the onus of that decision?”

Manmohan Singh was Prime Minister for two tenure of UPA in between 2004 and 2014, has been largely seen as a well-intentioned man of high personal integrity but one often unable to assert his authority.

Rai said, “Integrity is not just financial; it is intellectual integrity; it is professional integrity. You have an oath of allegiance to the constitution and that is important… You cannot sacrifice everything at the altar of trying to ensure the coalition remains in power. That was his worry.”

Rai said Singh told him on 16 November that the CAG’s method of computation of the multi-billion dollar losses was wrong.

“I told him ‘Sir, these are the econometric methods that you have taught us’. This was sitting on the stage of Vigyan Bhavan.”

Asked if at any stage he was offered support by the Gandhi family or the political establishment, Rai said: “I did not get a single reassuring signal either from the political machinery or the government, except one or two statements from Pranab Mukherjee.”

Bureau Report