Arun Jaitley
NEW DELHI: BJP today attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for appointment of disgraced Suresh Kalmadi as Chairman of the CWG Organizing Committee and charged Sports Minister Ajay Maken with committing “monumental deception” on Parliament.
Initiating a short duration discussion on Maken’s statement on August 3 regarding the CWG, Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh overruled objections by the Sports Ministry and his own office and favored Kalmadi’s appointment as OC Chairman.
Demanding that all documents and files in this regard be brought before the House, Jaitley said while the effort was to stop the buck at Kalmadi, responsibility lies both with the Central and statement governments. “….none of them should be spared.”
He also said if “heads are to roll”, heads of the state (Delhi) government and the Centre must also roll.
Jaitley said Maken is giving an impression as if the hands of the UPA were tied in the OC chief’s appointment because of the Host City Contract signed during the NDA regime.
Complimenting former Sports Minister M S Gill, Jaitley said, “Former ministers are the best witnesses. House has to take extraordinary steps…all files and documents which have been withheld should be summoned and inspected in the House.”
He said former sports ministers acted as whistle blowers.
Amid clashes between the Congress and the BJP, the House had to be adjourned twice before lunch as ruling party members demanded apology from the opposition party for raising slogans against UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Deputy Chairman K Rahman Khan also objected to the name calling. .
Jaitley alleged that the bid document which culminated into the contract for the CWG was changed.
Noting that the bid document was signed in May 2003 and converted into a contract in November 2003, he said, “In September 2004, an updated bid document surfaces in the files – the first fraud. It surfaces in 2004 but the date printed is December 2003…If a document enters Government files, somebody has to endorse it. There is no endorsement.”
The BJP leader wondered that when the bid was accepted in November in 2003 and culminated in a binding agreement, how could IOA revise its bid in December.
He said that he has also checked it from former Sports Minister Vikram Verma (NDA), who said he did not remember that the bid document was ever updated.
Jaitley said the document was slipped in the files to ensure that the OC went into private hands. Kalmadi then wrote a letter to the Prime Minister saying he wanted to be associated with the Games on which even the Cabinet Secretary wrote a note, he said.
He also said that the then Sports Minister late Sunil Dutt was told that he would be the Chairman of the OC but later he realized something else was going to happen and complained to the Prime Minister that the documents, including minutes were tampered with.
Jaitley said that all these facts were hidden from the House.
He said while each officer of the PMO said the minister should be the Chairman of the OC, the Prime Minister made a note on December 6, 2004 which talked of an Organizing Committee and an Executive Board responsible for conduct of Games “to be chaired by Suresh Kalmadi.” -PTI
