Chidambaram refusal to contest election is a blunt admission of his role in economic debacle of India

Chidambaram refusal to contest election is  blunt admission of his role in economic debacle of India

BJP leader and former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha war of words over P Chidambaram has cited the dismal state of the economy as the reason for not contesting this year's general election by Chidambaram.

Yashwant Sinha was justified in blaming,"Not contesting polls is Chidambaram's no-trust against himself". But the bigger embarrassment lies with P Chidambaram due to his inability in offering a satisfactory reply to latest salvo list of 18 questions posted to him by Yashwant Sinha.

Mr Chidambaram had derided as "puerile" , this list of 18 questions posted to him by the BJP leader and described him as a "distant memory', and tried in vain to defend his decision not to contest this year's election by saying, "I have categorically denied I am retiring from politics. I am not contesting elections because I want to do other things in life." ( INDIA HONEST regrets , why this thought did not stuck Cidambarm four years back.)

The Finance Minister took umbrage at Mr Sinha calling him a "spoiler" for the economy and had unleashed an "economic fact sheet" to defend his government's economic policies and switching fast gear to changing the topic by launching a fierce attack on the BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

Chidambaram said,"Modi has deep character flaws",one most repeated gimmick used by his party by alleging that the BJP candidate is a divisive leader who fuels communal tension.This of course is a nasty tactics by a finance minster to avoid answering economic debacle of UPA2.

Chidambaram lost his wit merged with his cool on Modi, who as a Chief Minister of Gujarat, is often credited with overseeing twelve years of Gujarat's fastest growth, when he said, "His brand of capitalism is crony capitalism," .

INDIA HONEST hoped , it would have been better if the Harvard-trained finance minister Chidambaram along with Congress' economist Prime Minister, had sensed the consequence of the economic malaise at least four years earlier and opted to resign then, India would have been saved from this worst economic peril , not seen in last three decades.

P C Chacko Engineered JPC Cover-up of the 2G Scam

The JPC task on 2G scam" report circulated in April says then Telecom Minister A Raja "misled" the Prime Minister in 2008 and manipulated a first-come-first-serve policy to push ineligible companies to the top of a long line of applicants for mobile network licences and second-generation or 2G airwaves. 

BJP leaders Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh, Gopinath Munde, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Dharmendra Pradhan and Harin Pathak addressed a press conference to release the dissent note that accuses Chacko of heading a Congress operation to debunk the CAG’s Rs 1.76 lakh crore loss report. 

They said former CAG Vinod Rai was treated in a most shabby manner, with Congress members of the JPC interrogating him in a rude and offencive manner. Rai was made to sit in the witness box despite being a constitutional authority instead of being given a seat next to the chairperson. Key political witnesses like DMK leaders A Raja and Dayanidhi Maran were not called and neither were senior officials of the Prime Minister’s Office. 

Addressing a press briefing in the national capital, senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha confirmed the development by saying, "We have given a dissent report against the JPC, which gave PM a clean chit." 

Sinha further alleged that the JPC report on 2G scam is a "cover-up" by the Centre to protect the Prime Minister and Finance Minister P Chidambaram. 

"The manner in which the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the 2G spectrum scam handled the report, MPs in future will dread asking for a JPC probe," the BJP leader said. 

Accusing Chacko of violating rules as JPC chairman on 2G draft report, the veteran BJP leader said, "After February, we did not have a JPC meeting for 7 months." 

Battle lines have been drawn for the meeting as BJP and Left members were all set to oppose the draft report by either giving strong notes of dissent or even demanding a vote. The Committee has 12 members of the ruling UPA --Congress (11) and NCP (1). Among its outside allies, SP has one member and BSP two and one Nominated member from the Rajya Sabha.

The Opposition camp has BJP (6), BJD (1), TMC (1), CPI (1), CPI-M (1), DMK (1) and AIADMK (1).JD(U) (2) . JD(U) has recently split with BJP, it has two members and the party's stand was crucial.

Congress leader PC Chacko, who chairs the 30-member panel, said that the report was adopted by a majority with 16 votes in favour as against 11 who opposed it. JD(U) switched their loyalty and joined hands with Congress and allowed P C Chacko to engineer JPC cover-up of the 2G scam.

Besides this, the Left and the Biju Janata Dal have already submitted dissent notes against the controversial draft report, which gives a clean chit to the Prime Minister and P Chidambaram.