Why did Vinod Rai not file FIR if he was pressured, asks Congress

NEW DELHI: Hitting back, Congress today sought to turn the tables on former CAG Vinod Rai asking him why he did not file an FIR if some pressure was brought upon him not to name then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the 2G and coal block allocation reports.

Alleging political motive behind his remarks, party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said that these are nothing but "rejected allegations primarily made by Subramanian Swamy", which did not stand the scrutiny of the Supreme Court and the special CBI court.

Suggesting that the former chief auditor was in league with the BJP, he also wondered as to why he has not uttered a word on serious strictures passed by the CAG in Gujarat against the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

While the Congress spokesperson accused Rai of showing "unsatiated hunger for publicity" before the launch of his new book, former party MPs Sanjay Nirupam and Sanjay Dikshit, who were accused by Rai of putting pressure on him, demanded an apology from him and threatened to drag him to the court.

Coming out with a stinging criticism of former Prime Minister Singh, Rai said that integrity is not just financial but intellectual and professional.

Rai, whose loss estimates in 2G spectrum and coal block allocations pushed the then UPA government into a corner also claimed that the then Congress MPs, including Sandeep Dikshit, Sanjay Nirupam and Ashwani Kumar, had sought to put pressure on him to keep the Prime Minister's name out of the said CAG reports.

Rejecting the charge, Nirupam and Dikshit said that they were not in the Public Accounts Committee, which had given its report on the 2G scam and had joined the newly-constituted PAC much after and hence it did not make any sense to ask the then CAG to change a report, which is already in public domain.

"Neither me nor Nirupam has anything to do with the earlier PAC," Dikshit insisted wondering "Am I an idiot that I have asked somebody to change the report, which has already been published."