Bhubaneswar, Nov. 20: Former Union minister and public accounts committee (PAC) chairman Murli Manohar Joshi today said that the actual loss in the 2G scam was debatable but the finance ministry was trying to hide the figures by refusing to calculate the loss.
“I have asked the government to calculate the loss but the finance ministry says it cannot. This is a trick to camouflage corruption,” the BJP veteran told reporters here while denying allegations that the PAC had tried to influence the issue in any manner.
“We had only talked about irregularities and the violation of the cabinet’s decision,” said Joshi.
Replying to questions about an attempt being made to drag former BJP leader Pramod Mahajan’s name in the 2G spectrum allocation controversy, he said that the Congress was trying to wriggle out of a tight situation by targeting not only the CAG and the PAC but also the National Democratic Alliance.
Alleging that the UPA government was trying to shield its leaders including home minister P. Chidambaram, Joshi said: “Let Congress take care of itself, we can take care of ourselves.”
The leader also lashed out at the UPA for opening the retail sector to foreign direct investment (FDI), thus jeopardising the future of small time retailers. “We will raise this issue in Parliament and build a countrywide agitation to save smaller retailers,” said Joshi, adding that UPA had also failed to evolve effective policies for price control and food grain trade.
Expressing concern over the situation on India’s northern border with China and the bigger country’s apparent ambitions of entering the Bay of Bengal through Myanmar, Joshi said the country must prepare itself for new threats in the changed security perspective. He also referred to the increased border infiltration from Pakistan and said the decision with regard to reducing or increasing the presence of armed forces in the region should be left to the army. “Without their consent, the army should not be withdrawn. We are going to oppose if this happens,” he said.
Joshi, who expressed his party’s resolve to oppose the Targeted Communal Violence Bill describing it as anti-Hindu, said the BJP would also raise the cash-for-vote issue as some of its leaders had been unjustly arrested in connection with the scam.
