PM worried more about tapping, not corruption: Advani

NEW DELHI: BJP leader LK Advani has said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s promise of putting in place a mechanism to prevent leakages of tapped conversations amounted to shooting the messenger.

“The message is clear. The UPA government was not formed by the prime minister. For long, we were under the wrong impression that it was not the prime minister but 10 Janpath (residence of Congress President Sonia Gandhi) that formed the Cabinet. But, now, it is all in the public domain. Corporate lobbyists select ministers,” BJP leader LK Advani alleged at a press conference here.

Advani criticised the prime minister for his remarks that the government will try to prevent leakages of tapped telephonic conversations. “He (prime minister) is worried about the leakage. What is the aspect of concern?

Common man’s concern is about the credibility of the government. There should be concern about this, but that is not there,” Advani said. The prime minister has asked Cabinet Secretary KM Chandrasekhar to work out a system for preventing leakages of tapped conversations.

“Are these matters about which the prime minister should be worried? I don’t understand,” the BJP leader said.
Advani said the government has failed to give even one concrete reason for rejecting the Opposition demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the 2G spectrum allocation. “There is no earthly, convincing reason why a JPC cannot be formed; it’s sheer stubbornness, sheer obduracy,” Advani alleged.

Giving the Opposition credit for removal of former telecom minister A Raja, Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and Commonwealth Games Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi, Advani said the country still was unaware of who the beneficiaries of the scams were.

Describing the 2G spectrum issue as the biggest scandal in independent India, he said: “We feel ashamed of the levels of corruption. India has slipped to the 87th position in the corruption index.”