Don't gag the CAG, Cong tells Centre

Jaitley had advised auditor not to spice up findings

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s remarks asking the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) not to sensationalise its audit findings has kicked up a row with the Congress accusing the BJP government of virtually issuing threat to the government auditor.

“The Finance Minister’s suggestions to the CAG amount to threats,” AICC General Secretary Ajay Maken told reporters. He wondered whether the government feared being targeted on the basis of CAG reports like the one on United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime.

Jaitley, who also faced flak on social networking sites, issued a clarification saying news reports on his remarks at a CAG conference “did not accurately reflect the spirit of my speech”.

“Wish he (Jaitley) had realised this when 2G and Coal Block CAG report came,” AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh said.

The Congress also used the opportunity to get back at the BJP, accusing the government of making several ‘U-turns’ after winning the Lok Sabha elections in May.

“Why there is a sudden change of heart and a U-turn? Is it because of the CAG report on Gujarat which talks about irregularities worth Rs 25,000 crore in land affairs when (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi was the chief minister,” Maken asked.

Maken said Congress does not see Jaitley’s statement as a “one-off incident” but “as one sequence”.

He said since the BJP came to power in May not a single day has passed when the government has not reversed its stand on any issue.

“We have the Henderson-Brooks Report, FDI in insurance, GST, the position on black money,” Maken said.

At the same conference where Jaitley had made the controversial remarks, Congress leader and Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee K V Thomas had asked the CAG to limit its audits to probing financial impropriety and not come out with astronomical figures of “notional losses”.

Maken said Thomas had only articulated the Congress stand. “For the past five years, the Congress has been saying CAG reports should not be sensationalised,” he said.