Gadkari asks Sonia to explain Chidambaram's role in 2G

Moradabad, Mar 1 (ANI): Charging the ruling Congress Party of swindling trillions of public money in the 2G spectrum allocation, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Nitin Gadkari on Thursday sought an answer from Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram's role in the case.

Addressing a rally in Uttar Pradesh's Moradabad District, Gadkari said: "In our democracy, in our constitution, the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) has revealed in its reports that the ruling Congress party had swindled nearly 1 Lakh 76 thousand crore rupees (1.76 trillion rupees) in the 2G spectrum allocation scam. A. Raja is in jail and a lot of Congress ministers too are in the line."

"My brothers and sisters, in an affidavit presented in the Supreme Court, Raja had stated that whatever decisions he had taken during the allocation of spectrums, they were approved by the then Finance Minister P. Chidambaram. Then, I would like to ask Soniaji (Congress President Sonia Gandhi) that if Raja is imprisoned, then why is Chidambaram outside. She needs to answer this question?" he asked.

Unsuccessful in convincing the 2G spectrum scam trial court to proceed against Chidambaram for his alleged role as the then finance minister in the 2G scam, Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy had earlier on February 23 moved the Supreme Court in appeal to agitate the issue.

The telecom scam, one of India's biggest graft cases ever, may have cost 39.57 billion dollars in expected revenue losses to the public exchequer as per the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India's report.

Gadkari also lashed out at the Congress Party for raking up the 2008 Batla House encounter with an aim to gain political mileage.

"In the gun battle between the alleged militants and the police, that occurred at Batla House in New Delhi (in 2008), police official Mohan Chand Sharma was martyred during the shootout. Sonia Gandhi's eyes were full of tears, when the alleged terrorists were killed, but why she was not seen crying when Sharma was killed. What kind of politics is this?" he said.

During his campaign trail in Uttar Pradesh, Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid had said that Sonia Gandhi was in tears when she saw photographs of the incident.

Batla House encounter officially known as Operation Batla House, took place on September 19, 2008, against suspected Indian Mujahideen (IM) terrorists in Batla House locality in Jamia Nagar, Delhi, in which two suspected terrorist, Atif Amin and Mohamed Sajid, two other suspects Mohd Saif and Zeeshan were arrested, while one accused Ariz Khan managed to escape.

Encounter specialist and Delhi Police inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, who led the police action was killed during the incident. (ANI)