Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: At a time when the Congress is facing a stiff political battle over auditor’s report on coal blocks allocation, party general secretary opened a new front against Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai by accusing him of harbouring political ambitions.
Digvijay equated Rai with one his predecessors TN Chaturvedi, who had in 1989 brought out a report on Bofors gun bought by Rajiv Gandhi and upon retirement joined the BJP.
“The way the CAG is going, it is clear he has political ambitions like TN Chaturvedi. He has been giving notional and fictional figures that have no relevance to facts. How has he computed these figures? He is talking through his hat,” Singh said in an interview to The Indian Express.
After joining BJP, Chaturvedi rose to become a Member of Parliament and was also appointed as governor of Karnataka.
Singh’s scathing attack gains importance as it is the first time a senior Congress leader has openly attacked Vinod Rai.
The CAG, in its report, has said that lack of transparency in allocation of coal blocks to private players resulted in a notional loss of Rs.1.85 lakh crore (USD 37 billion) to the exchequer.
The report also mentioned that the mines were distributed to persons who don’t have any experience in coal mining, thus clearly indicating that there might be some beneficiaries who might be close to some influential people.
First Published: Friday, August 31, 2012, 09:09