Congress fumes as ex-CAG Vinod Rai makes shocking revelations against UPA on Coalgate, CWG scam

Zee Media Bureau/Tarun Khanna

New Delhi: In what can bring in more trouble for the Congress party, a book authored by former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai is set to make a disclosure that the senior UPA functionaries wanted to tamper with the reports of Coalgate and Commonwealth scams. Speaking to an English daily on the sidelines of the launch of his book `Not Just An Accountant`, Rai said that he was pressurised by the top brass of UPA government to drop certain names from his reports on Coalgate and Commonwealth Games Scams. “Politicians came to my house and told me not to name certain people in the report who were linked with the CWG and Coal Block allocation scam,” he revealed. Rai also said that the book, which is set to be released on September 15, will also reveal certain details about what made former PM Manmohan Singh to take decisions that caused losses to exchequer. However, Rai refused to name the functionaries in UPA who forced him to drop certain names, but asserted that some of his colleagues were also asked to persuade him. "See the PM is the primus inter pares or the first among equals. He has to take the last call which sometimes he did, sometime he didn`t. It`s a frank tell-all-tale, not with the intention of finding fault but at the same time indicating the fault and suggesting remedial systematic changes so that it doesn`t go wrong in the future,” The Times of India quoted him as saying. The book in its 15 chapters also contains interactions between Rai, Singh and other UPA functionaries. Meanwhile,reacting to the revelations made by Rai in his book, Congress senior leader Manish Tewari dared him to debate on any given platform.

Reiterate standing invite to Former C&AG Rai Sahib to debate at any forum of his choicesensationalism that formed the staple of his tenure ?

— Manish Tewari (@ManishTewari) August 24, 2014

The NCP leader DP Tripathi also slammed Rai for making such revelations and called him an opportunist who didn`t bring the issue up when he should have. On other hand, the BJP took a jibe at the Congress and demanded Rai to reveal the names of the functionaries who pressurised him to drop the names from the reports.

So after Sanjay Baru & Natwar Singh it's former CAG Vinod Rai who's ready to drop a "Book-Bomb" ...Carpet Bombing of the Congress on way!!

— Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj) August 24, 2014

Earlier, former coal secretary PC Parakh in his book “Crusader or Conspirator? Coalgate and Other Truths” revealed that Manmohan Singh’s authority in determining the process by which coal blocks should be allocated was undermined by former coal minister Shibu Soren and minister of state for coal Dasari Narayana Rao. Singh`s former media advisor Sanjay Baru in his book `The Accidental Prime Minister` revealed that the last PM had accepted that Sonia Gandhi, as the head of the Congress party, had the final say in everything.