Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Friday took a dig at the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai for hitting out at Manmohan Singh-led government for attempting to reduce the federal auditor to a mere accountant.
A day after Vinod Rai hit headlines for giving a hard-hitting speech at the Harvard Kennedy School, a war of words has been broken out among the CAG and political parties.
Replying to Rai’s 'accountant' remark, whose reports on various scams had raised hackles of those in government, Digvijay Singh wondered if the CAG wanted to become Prime Minister then.
Singh said the CAG's working is defined in the Constitution and everyone should do his or her work according to those definitions.
"If the judiciary will do the executive's work, the CAG will formulate policies and the civil society will formulate laws, then how will democracy run? What does the CAG want to become if not an accountant? Does he intend to become the Prime Minister?" he added.
Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party has come out in favour of the CAG.
“I agree with what Vinod Rai has said, no doubt that he has strengthened the CAG,” said senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha.
On Thursday, Rai said the public auditor would endeavour to uncover instances of crony capitalism and counselled the government to support enterprises per se and not entrepreneurs.
Rai, who was been criticised by the Indian government for reports on various scams like in telecom, coal etc, said adding, the role of a public auditor cannot be confined to merely placing its report in Parliament.
He said, "Should we as public auditors limit our role to placing reports in Parliament or go beyond that and seek to sensitise public opinion on our audit observations especially so in social sector audits such as rural health, primary education, water pollution, environment, drinking water etc."
First Published: Friday, February 08, 2013, 13:16