The PM in an interaction with the media said that former Sports Minister Mani shankar Aiyar's letters to PM about CWG were "Purely ideological" . In fact Aiyar warned him about the financial improprieties as early as 2007 through a spate of letters running to 63 pages,as has been recently exposed by a TV channel.But Aiyar did concede that his fault was that he did not carry conviction,as his primary concern was ideological.Aiyar did initially say, given the levels of poverty and under-development in the country, expenditure on the CWG appears wasteful.But in his subsequent letters to PM he has pointed out huge gaps between initial expenditure projections and the revised expenditure projections.He even sought a meeting with the PM to discuss about the "profligacy of CWG OC chairman Mr.Suresh Kalmadi " .Aiyar also says though his primary concern was idelogical, he also realised about the alarming financial impropriety and this was also conveyed in his letters to PM. Aiyar goes on to say "Everyone thought it was a personality clash" .But what is intriguing is that, despite Aiyar bringing his letters to the notice of the PM,Cabinet and GOM (group of ministers ),no body took his charges seriously and he was overruled in the GOM by the finance Minister.How can the FM turn a deaf ear to a complaint about extravagant spending against projections ?.Aiyar also said since now the letters are in public domain,it will refresh the PM's memory. Aiyar says the next step was he was sacked and Kalmadi was retained.Aiyar said he did not not want to share a cell with Kalmadi in Tihar jail.It is surprising that PM said his office has no mechanism to look into all minute details .In his letters Aiyar wrote Kalmadi violated all norms.Does not the PMO has mechanism to verify violation of norms ?It is also surprising that Aiyars letters did not get any reply from the PMO .The PMO's office also did put to cold storage Subramaniam Swamy's letters to PMO regarding 2G scams .The PMO replied Swamy only after court's intervention .Aiyar had also written a letter to PM’s Additional Secretary that he would initiate talks with Sonia Gandhi about the scam. But his efforts to convince Sonia also did not succeed.The VK Shunglu Committee which probed the CWG scam did mention about the letters written by Aiyar to the PM, but the committee was silent on the PMO's silence .It must be borne in mind Aiyar was seeking PM's intervention to stop corruption in his own ministry.He was the Sports minister then.May be, the PMO believed Aiyar's letters were due to a personality clash between him and Kalmadi.But it is an undeniable fact that the corruption in the run up to the CWG was known to the PMO ,but for some strange reason PM was inactive.It may be noted that Aiyar did also send a letter to then Finance Minister P Chidambaram giving all relevant details of CWG Organising Committee (CWG-OC) chief Suresh Kalmadi violating norms, but it did not evoke any action from Chidambaram. It is reported that Kalmadi managed to release funds directly from the Finance Ministry without even giving proper account of the expenses.Aiyar in his letter, addressed to Chidambaram on Dec 5, 2007, had requested the Finance Ministry to remove the Sports Ministry from the procedure of allotment of funds to the CWG Organising Committee.It is a pity PM ignored a spate of letters form his own ministerial colleague and when the shinglu comiittee tabled its report ,the Media advisor to the Prime Minister, Harish Khare, said "The Prime Minister has taken a serious view of the findings in the first report of the Shunglu Committee" .Was the PM trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted ?And when the PM's media Advisor said the the report has been sent to Cabinet Secretary KM Chandrasekhar for "immediate examination", it was highly incongruous.
Manmohan singh is often referred to as the architect of India's economic reforms.But of late he is seen as an avatar of inaction.Why is he not acting decisively ? Some time back in a meeting with media men, PM said there were coalition compulsions to explain about his in-actions in the 2G scam . But in CWG scam, a ministerial colleague from his own party was doing everything possible to bring to his attention about an "gargantuan gap " between projections and actuals of CWG expenditure .Unfortunatley PM did not act on the warnings of his ministerial colleague.Fingers were pointed to PMO in 2G Scam Antrix,Devas deal ,appointment of CVC and now CWG scam .Will the PM call this also an error of judgement ?It is unfortunate a world renowned economist's ,clean image is taking a beating ,because of his inactions. Manmohan Sing per se may be honest .But as an honest person he should not have allowed persons to loot the nation.The PM wants public commendation for his honesty .But he is shying away to fight the corrupt lot around him.
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