Sunday, August 24, 2014

UPA pressured me to drop names from CAG reports: Vinod Rai

NEW DELHI: The Congress leadership is headed for a fresh spell of embarrassment with former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai making the damning disclosure that UPA functionaries deputed politicians to get him to leave out names from the auditor's reports on Coalgate and Commonwealth Games scams.

"Politicians came to my home and told me not to name some people and to protect some others in connection with the CWG and coal allocation reports," Rai told TOI offering an exclusive peep into his much-awaited recollection of his tumultuous tenure as the federal auditor.

Rai, who spoke to TOI on the sidelines of a book launch function, revealed that "Not Just An Accountant", set to be released on September 15, will also provide details of how sheer considerations of survival led the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to acquiesce to decisions which caused huge loss to the exchequer.


"See the PM is the primus inter pares or the first among equals. He has to take the last call which sometimes he did, sometime he didn't," Rai said. The former CAG, who was attacked by Congress for his reports on scams — from 2G and Commonwealth to Coalgate — dodged a direct response when asked whether the swindles could have been averted if Manmohan had exercised his authority as PM. "I cannot tell you how I have put it in the book but very frankly I have discussed the action taken or not taken by the functionaries whose responsibility it was to take decision at the appropriate time, including those on whose desk the buck finally stopped."

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