P Chidambaram - Controversy refuses to let this man alone

This year several high profile ministers resigned, many were sent to prison but still, I believe, the title of most controversial politician of this year will go to P. Chidambaram, Home Minister, Government of India.

First his name gets dragged into the multi-multi-crore 2G spectrum allocation scam of India. It is alleged that he was involved in the 2G spectrum allocation scandal. Just when the opposition had started to cool down against him, a letter from finance ministry to the prime minister's office surfaced, that too when both the finance minister and the prime minister were not in the country.

The media had gotten over this incident when it was learnt that Subramanian Swamy has been asked to present his arguement before court as to why P. Chidambaram's role in the spectrum allocation case should be investigated.

Now as the year draws to an end, the news to hit the streets against the home minister is regarding his alleged misuse of office. It seems that minister used his position as home minister to get criminal cases against one his former clients to be withdrawn.


P. Chidambaram the name will go down history as the most controversial politician of 2011.

CBI hints at Anil Ambani's role in 2G

Anil Ambani  - son of late Dhirubhai Ambani - is now under the CBI scanner for his role in the alleged mega-2G scam.

It may be noted that three senior executives of his Reliance Communications are already members of the Tihar Jail's VIP Club.

It has been reported that the cops have informed the Supreme Court of India that these 3 Reliance Communication Executives want to change their original stand in the case according to which they had maintained that they were responsible for the decisions made in connection with the 2G issue.

Reliance Communications is India's second largest telecom service provider and a company of Anil Ambani's ADAG. The prices of the shares of the ADAG companies crashed on the stock markets today when the news of Anil Ambani being investigating hit the streets.

However, some political observers say that information of investigating Anil Ambani has been disclosed at this juncture to take heat of the home minister P. Chidambaram. The home minister has been under pressure for quite some time, especially after the note from Finance Ministry to Prime Minister Office went public.

Scams of India

The current Government of India led by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh will probably go down in history as the government with the maximum number of corruption charges - both in terms of quantity and magnitude. Most of the scams exposed in the last few months have occurred while the government is still in power.

Ironically, some of the most severe allegations of corruption were against the Congress or Congress-led governments. These include...

• Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had imposed emergency when Jai Prakash Narayan led an anti-corruption campaign against her government.
• Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi faced rough weather when his senior colleagues led by V. P. Singh alleged corruption in the Bofors Commission scandal. 
• Soon after completing his tenure, Prime Minister P. V. Narsimha Rao's was tried in court for bribing the members of parliament from the Shibu Soren's JMM Party.
• Amar Singh, Member of Parliament, is currently in custody for his role in trying to bribe some members of parliament to abstain from voting or voting in favour of the Congress during the last Vote of Confidence in the parliament. Incidentally mediator and the whistle blowers in the case have been sent to judicial custody while the beneficiaries of this graft are still left untouched.

And now the current government has, shamelessly, surpassed all previous scandals, its ministers and senior MPs have landed in jail for their involvement in the mega-scams that have taken place in the last 3-4 years. The size of the scams put all the previous scams to shame...

• Commonwealth Games scandal - Thousands of Crores - Accused politicians include... Suresh Kalmadi MP and chairman of the Organizing Committee, Sheila Dixit, Chief Minister of Delhi.
• 2G Scam - Lakhs of Crores - Accused politicians include... A. Raja, MP and now ex-Minister of Telecommunications, Kanimozhi MP, P. Chidambaram - then Finance Minister, now Home Minister.

Earlier governments too have had criminal investigations against them, but none were of this magnitude and most were after the government had left office.

To top it all, the government has vigorously contested against those have raised voices against corruption and black money.

Fingers pointed at P. Chidambaram's role in 2G scam

Another embarrassing moment for the Congress led UPA government at the center in India.

This time a note has come forward. This note prepared by the Department of Economic Affairs, an office under Pranab Mukherjee, current Finance Minister of India, was sent to PMO on 25 March 2011. It has raised questions on the actions and inaction of P. Chidambaram, the then Finance Minister of India in connection with the 2G scam.

The note - an 11-page document - describes that the Finance Ministry had demanded that the 2G spectrum be auctioned. According to a report in the Times of India, the note says that P. Chidambaram had overruled the recommendations of the ministry - the Ministry of Finance - that demanded that 2G spectrum be auctioned.

"DoT could have invoked this clause (5.1 of the UAS license) for cancelling licences in case MoF had stuck to the stand of auctioning the 4.4 MHz spectrum," the note says.

The note, directly casts a shadow of suspicion on the role played by the then Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in the 2G spectrum allocation which is said to have caused a loss of Rs. 50000 crore to Rs. 1.76 lakh crore to the Indian exchequer.

The timing of this note becoming public could not have been worse for the ruling UPA coalition, whose credibility has been severely compromised in the past few months. The note was given by PMO to an RTI activitist in response to an RTI request.