Venkaiah slams PM, FM for remarks on CBI, CAG

BJP senior leader M Venkaiah Naidu said that the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s statement that the CBI could not question policy decisions and Finance Minister P Chidambaram cautioning the CBI and CAG not to overstep their limits is a direct warning to the investigating agencies that they should not be over enthusiastic while probing government decisions.

The finance minister had ridiculed the CBI as ‘pretending to be victim at times when it pleads for more powers and greater autonomy’, Venkaiah Naidu said while addressing a press conference here on Thursday. “Even a little inconvenient work by the CBI, at times, is not being digested by the ruling party. The Prime Minister, the finance minister and earlier the minister for personnel and the law minister at frequent intervals have tried to caution and warn the investigating agencies.  Added to this, an array of arrogant ministers have been deployed to systematically criticise and otherwise deride and denigrate the institutions like Supreme Court, CAG, CBI, RBI and other constitutional bodies,” he said.

Venkaiah Naidu said that the Prime Minister, at the conference, must have spoken on making CBI autonomous and should have given some moral strength to the investigating agencies. Instead he and his colleagues have chosen demoralise them, he said. “This move of the Congress government is systematically planned, carefully crafted and articulated in an able manner to carry the misinformation offensive,” he alleged.

The BJP leader alleged that the ruling party was trying to restrain the independent agencies from going behind their government policies and decisions and from looking for evidence of their wrong doings. This is the pattern the UPA is embarked upon. The government is making a brazen attempt to cover up its misdeeds and also to thar its predecessor government, he said.

Venkaiah Naidu alleged that the Congress has always misused the CBI to shield itself from corruption. The CBI director in an affidavit to Supreme Court stated that the then law minister Ashwini Kumar, senior officials from the PMO and coal ministry have vetted CBI report on coal block allocation before it was submitted to the Supreme Court. And then the law minister was forced to resign when he made attempts to subvert law and course of justice on coal-gate scam.

“Desperate times calls for desperate measures. Instead of trying to correct their mistakes, punish the culprits, allowing the agencies to do their work, the prime minister and his team are trying to not only weaken the probing agencies but are also trying to warn and demoralise them,” he said.  

Accusing the Congress of weakening the federal polity, Venkaiah Naidu said that the ruling party has shown discrimination against the non-congress governments, weakened and denigrated every institution; judiciary and constitutional bodies like EC, CAG, CVC, RBI, Human Rights Commission etc. “It has misused and destroyed institutions like CBI, ED, and Income Tax for its short term political gains. Courtesy the CBI that the Congress is still in power, otherwise it has long back lost majority. The CBI is being misused to keep its allies under control, win over the neutrals, defame opponents, destabilise opposition governments and dilute the corruption cases against the ruling party. In the process some of these institutions lost their credibility,” he alleged.

Venkaiah Naidu said that the NDA, after coming to power, would give needed autonomy to the CBI and all the scams and scandals that took place in UPA-I and II regimes would be investigated and tried in a time-bound manner by appointing special courts, wherever necessary.