Former Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India Vinod Rai has made an extraordinary apology to Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam for lying during an interview with Arnab Goswami on news channel Times Now. Rai has apologized for ‘wrongly’ mentioning Nirupam’s name as one of the MPs who pressured him not to name former PM Manmohan Singh in the CAG report on 2G spectrum allocation.
While talking to Arnab Goswami in 2014, Vinod Rai had said, “On 2G, Congress MPs told me, ‘Let’s keep the prime minister away from it’.” When Goswami asked him the names of those Congress MPs, Rai had said, “There were three-four Congress MPs. But, he is no longer an MP. So it’s very easy to find out who they are.”
When Arnab Goswami insisted, Rai said, “I cannot remember those names, but the Congress MPs present in those meetings were Mr. Sanjay Nirupam, Mr. Ashwini Kumar, Mr. Sandeep Dixit.”
Following which Nirupam filed a defamation suit against Rai. At the same time, now Rai apologized to Nirupam for his statement.
In his apology to Nirupam, Rai said, “I have inadvertently and mistakenly mentioned the name of Sanjay Nirupam as one of the MPs who blamed the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on me during meetings in the PAC or during the meetings of the JPC. During the period, 2G spectrum assignments were put out of the CAG report.
He further said, “I understand the pain and anguish caused by my statements to Sanjay Nirupam, his family and well wishers and hence I would like to apologize unconditionally for the harm caused to Sanjay Nirupam and his family by my statements. I hope Sanjay Nirupam will consider my unconditional apology and accept it and close the matter.”
Reacting to Rai’s apology, Nirupam tweeted, “Finally former CAG Vinod Rai tendered an unconditional apology to me in a defamation case filed by me in MM Court, Patiyala house, New Delhi today. He must apologize to the nation now for all his forged reports about 2G and Coal block allocations done by the UPA Govt.”
Rai’s baseless allegations against the then Congress-led government were instrumental in the removal of Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister of India and Narendra Modi’s victory in the 2014 general elections.
Let us tell you that after Modi became the Prime Minister, Arnab Goswami left Times Now and launched Republic TV with the help of BJP MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar.