Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said here Sunday that he met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for an hour in the morning to brief him on economic issues after his meetings with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington.
Absolutely denying in the face of persistent media questioning that his meeting was linked in any way to the controversy back home involving him and home minister P. Chidambaram in the 2G spectrum case, Mr Mukherjee said he had chosen to see the Prime Minister in New York as he was headed straight for Kolkata for the Durga Puja festivities.
The finance minister said he hadn’t “cut short” his visit to Washington to catch the Prime Minister in New York, and in fact kept all his official appointments there.
On the 2G-related case, which the Opposition BJP insists has led to serious “infighting within the Union Cabinet with the fires reaching right up to the Prime Minister’s doorstep, Mr Mukherjee said: “Unless I have discussed the matter with the law minister and the home minister (whom he described as a “valued colleague”), I will not discuss this matter.”
He also noted he did not see propriety in talking about such matters on foreign soil. “I am not here to satisfy your inquisitiveness”, he said.
“I am not a fugitive. I am not leaving the country for all time to come. Therefore what I can say, what is permissible for me to say as the matter is sub judice. I am not a lawyer. I shall have to take expert opinion on it,” he said.
When told that the Opposition was making a big issue out of the finance ministry’s note, Mr Mukherjee said: “It is their... Opposition’s job. What else will the Opposition do?”
Asked Saturday if he had confidence in his current finance minister just as he had in his former finance minister, the Prime Minister had shot back, “Of course!”