Won’t make any public statement on 2G: Chidambaram

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Union home minister P.Chidambaram, now in the middle of a controversy over his role in 2G spectrum allocation while he was finance minister earlier, said in a statement on Thursday evening: “Friends from the media have asked me why I remain silent... Prime Minister [Manmohan Singh] called me last night from Frankfurt and spoke to me. The finance minister [Pranab Mukherjee] called me from Washington and spoke to me. I have assured the Prime Minister that I shall not make any public statement on the subject until he returns to India.”

The Congress party also rallied around the home minister, saying the “move to create a rift between constitutional authorities” was “regrettable”. The party said “Chidambaram’s integrity cannot be questioned”, and said Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy’s claim made in the Supreme Court was “motivated”.

It may be recalled that March 25, 2011 note on the allocation and pricing of 2G spectrum broadly suggested that then finance minister P. Chidambaram could have insisted on an auction of the valuable resource at the time the spectrum was sold on a first-come-firstserved basis. A. Raja, now behind bars, was communications minister at that juncture.

The note was submitted to the Supreme Court on Wednesday by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy during a hearing on his petition on the issue. It had been written by Mr P.G.S. Rao, deputy director in the finance ministry, and addressed to Ms Vini Mahajan, joint secretary in the PMO.