Former colleagues question motives behind ex-CAG Vinod Rai's revelations

Former CAG Vinod Rai’s criticism of ex-PM Manmohan Singh’s handling of the various scams that hit the UPA government may not have gone down too well with many of his own colleagues and some of them have taken to social media to voice their criticism of his new book.

According to an Economic Times report , among the reasons that officials, many of whom are at a senior position, are upset supposedly with Rai’s ‘revelations’ in his new book, ‘The Diary of the Nation’s Conscience Keeper — Not Just An Accountant’ are the fact that he is an IAS officer and is not qualified as an auditor, and acts of impropriety disclosed by Rai in his book.

The business daily report quotes a Facebook post of a serving principal accountant general questioning Rai’s right to go ahead with publishing the work of CAG officials without seeking their permission.

The post, according to ET , saw several officials ’like’ it while others were forthcoming and question Rai’s right to write the book.

“Somebody takes material produced by the labour of a large number of people in the department and fashions it in such a way that it will earn him lakhs of rupees. What right does he have to do this? And we in the department still insist on supporting him. God help us! If he had the courage of his conviction, he should have put all these facts in the public domain when they were happening and faced the consequences. I would then have saluted him.”

While refusing to comment on the book, former PM Singh said “I, indeed, did my duty. Well, I do not want to comment on other people (and) what they have written.”

Rai, who had demitted office last year after several run-ins with the UPA government and had estimated a “notional” loss of Rs. 1.76 lakh crore in the 2G spectrum allocation and Rs 1.86 lakh crore in coal block allocations, was severe in his comments on Singh.

“See the prime minister is the first among equals. He has to take the last call which sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t. Everything cannot be sacrificed only to remain in power. Governance cannot be sacrificed at the altar of compulsion of coalition politics. I have said it in the book,” Rai said in comments to The Times of India.

The former CAG, in an interview to Times Now said that if Singh had wanted, he could have prevented the 2G scam, as he had ample opportunities to do so.

“All matters of importance goes to the PM. All the bucks stop on the desk of the PM. In fact, then commerce minister Kamal Nath wrote to the PM expressing concern on the developments on the 2G front. Even the finance and law ministries had expressed their reservations in their respective communication to the PM,” Rai said.