It underscores the fact that PMO is responsible for the line about Chidambaram in office memorandum

An embarrassed party — and the government — on Tuesday sought to minimise the significance of Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on September 26, a day after the two men met in New York; the contents of the two-page letter, which seeks to set the record straight on the March 25 Finance Ministry's office memorandum on the 2G spectrum allocation controversy, are now in the public domain, with a copy with the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) looking at the 2G issue.

In his letter, Mr. Mukherjee clarifies that the controversial line about Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram not doing enough to push for the auction route for allocation of spectrum was inserted in what was finally described as the Finance Ministry note of March 25 after it was revised by officials of the Cabinet Secretariat and the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). The letter underscores the fact that the PMO and the Cabinet Secretariat are responsible for the line about Mr. Chidambaram, not the Finance Ministry. The inference is that the conclusion that had been drawn from the surfacing of the Finance Ministry note — that the Finance and Home Ministers were at war — was unfair.

Mr. Mukherjee's letter also states that his suggestion that the note (after it had been revised) not be issued as an Office Memorandum was overruled: the suggestion is that had his advice been taken, it would not have been a formal document, and therefore may not have been accessed through RTI, causing the government the embarrassment it has.

On Tuesday, Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari, asked to respond to the contents of the letter, skirted the issue: “The circumstances of the March 25 letter have been discussed to death. Three agencies are looking into the 2G matter — the courts, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the JPC,” he said, adding, “if there are any concerns about the interpretation of events, it is best left to the judgment of the JPC. The matter has been discussed in the JPC and will be discussed again when it meets in mid-November.”

A key Minister, asked to respond to the letter, echoed this line, “The matter is before the JPC – let it decide on it.”

Mr. Mukherjee ends his letter stressing that the “DEA [Department of Economic Affairs] was not in favour of sending the note, after its finalisation through a formal OM [office memorandum]. It was upon the insistence of the JS, PMO, through her phone calls to Secretary, DEA that the communication was sent through a formal OM on March 25, 2011.”

These revelations come in the wake of the truce that played out before television cameras on September 29, when a glum Mr. Mukherjee read out from a brief prepared statement on the steps of North Block, stressing that the “inferences and interpretations” in the inter-ministerial background paper on the 2G issue did not reflect his views. Seconds later, a grim Mr. Chidambaram stepped forward to say he was “happy” with the statement made by his “senior and distinguished colleague.” That public enactment was intended to convey the impression that the government had resolved its internal problems — but Mr Mukherjee's September 26 letter has ended up pointing fingers at the PMO. The letter implies – without saying so directly — that someone in the PMO or Cabinet Secretariat had put in a dissonant line in a note intended as an inter-ministerial background paper for officials publicly testifying on the 2G issue.

PTI adds:

Mr. Mukherjee on Tuesday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi after surfacing of his letter which suggested his Ministry’s controversial March 25 note on 2G was revised after “consultations” with Cabinet Secretariat and the PMO.

Though it was not clear what transpired in these meetings, it is believed that the issue related to the September 26 letter written by Mr. Mukherjee to the Prime Minister figured.