New Delhi, Aug 2 (IANS) Noting that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ignored the warning of three successive sports ministers on former Commonwealth Games Organising Committee chief Suresh Kalmadi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tuesday said perhaps he wanted to keep an ‘arm’s length distance’ on the issue.
‘The fact is that three sports ministers of the UPA — Sunil Dutt, Mani Shankar Aiyar and M.S. Gill — tried to call the prime minister’s attention on the person appointed, but he ignored it,’ BJP leader Arun Jaitley said.
According to the findings through a Right to Information (RTI) application, Dutt, Aiyar and Gill wrote to the prime minister suggesting against Kalmadi continuing as the chief of the CWG OC.
‘Perhaps this was also a case of the PM’s Office maintaining an arm’s length distance,’ Jaitley said, in reference to reports of the Prime Minister’s Office asking the department of telecom to keep it at an arm length in the 2G spectrum allocation.
A noting of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s principal secretary asked the department of telecommunications (DoT) to keep the PMO at an arm’s length on the matter of allocation of 2G spectrum and new licenses. It was later clarified by the PMO that there was no such case.
