Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday stonewalled all queries on corruption — from 2G scam to coal scam to bribery charges against Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhadra Singh — and instead, accused the media of playing into the hands of the Opposition, which, he said, had a vested interest. He also preferred to speak for himself rather than as a leader of the Government that has been hit hard due to cases of rampant corruption.
“Corruption charges against the Government relate to UPA-I and people of the country have not heeded to those charges and given us a second term,” he said, mentioning scandals involving 2G spectrum allocation and coal block allotment, decisions which were made during his first term between 2004 and 2009.
Singh consistently downplayed corruption charges levelled against his Government and said: “I honestly believe that history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media or for that matter the Opposition in Parliament.”
“The Opposition had vested interest and media, CAG and other entities played on it some time... When history is written, we will come out unscathed,” he said, adding that he had taken action to deal with the charges and stressed that “any wrong doing in government decisions will be punished”.
He, however, admitted that corruption was an issue and Aam Admi Party led by Arvind Kejriwal has been able to “make success out of their concerns of eradication of corruption”. Maintaining that dealing with corruption was not an easy task, he sought to emphasize that he never used his office to enrich friends or relatives.
Singh also brushed aside accusations that he did not assert himself enough when his colleagues made controversial decisions which resulted in leveling of corruption charges.
“I was the one who insisted spectrum allocation should be transparent and fair... Coal block allocation should be on auction basis... There were irregularities but dimensions of irregularities were overstated by media and CAG,” he said.
What he, however, did not answer was how the scams happened even after his objections.