By IANS,
New Delhi : Union ministers Pawan kumar Bansal and V. Narayanswamy met Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee here late Wednesday as part of the efforts in the government to sort out the controversy created by the finance ministry’s note on the 2G spectrum allocation.
Narayanswamy did not divulge details of the meeting. “I came here to meet finance minister. I meet him once or twice a week,” he told reporters.
Congress sources said the meeting discussed ways to end the controversy that has given rise to speculation about differences between Mukherjee and Home Minister P. Chidambaram on the 2G spectrum allocation.
The meeting came in the backdrop of Mukherjee writing a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh clarifying his ministry’s position on the controversial 2G spectrum note.
The letter, a copy of which has been sent to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, said that the note had been prepared in consultation with other ministries.
Apart from Bansal, who is parliamentary affairs minister, and Narayanswamy, who is minister of state in prime minister’s office, the meeting was also attended by Bansal’s deputy Rajiv Shukla.
The March 25 note to the PMO from the finance ministry says that the airwaves could have been auctioned in 2008 if Chidambaram, who was then the finance minister, had “stuck to his stand”.
In the note, the finance ministry says Chidambaram could have prevented spectrum from being given away at throwaway prices by insisting on its auction — implying that presumptive losses worth thousands of crores of rupees could have thus been avoided.
Mukherjee, who was in Kolkata, returned to Delhi Wednesday evening.