I had warned Manmohan on 2G: Nath

• ‘I did write a letter to PM warning him of allocations in 2G. It is already in govt files’
• Was it the 2G of the Congress that was preventing it - Sonia G and Rahul G: BJP
• Nirupam, Dikshit threaten legal action if Rai does not withdraw his comments

New Delhi: In a statement that could send ripples across the Congress, senior party leader and former Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath has claimed that he had warned former prime minister Manmohan Singh over 2G allocations. "I did write a letter to the PM warning him of the allocations in 2G. It is already in the government files," said the Congress leader.

Kamal Nath's claims come at a time when former Comptroller and Auditor General of India Vinod Rai has alleged that the former PM took no corrective measures to avert loss to the exchequer despite being aware of the actions of the various ministries and many cabinet ministers bringing the irregularities to his notice.

Training guns at Singh, the Bharatiya Janata Party questioned why Singh did not intervene to stop the scams under the UPA regime. "It is clear that he was not intervening but who was stopping him? Was it the 2G of the Congress that was preventing it - Sonia G and Rahul G? This is the big question that people of this country will ask," BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said.

However, Congress leader Manish Tewari defended Singh saying that he has nothing to answer in the scams. "In so far as the 2G case is concerned, the developments in the telecom sector between 1995 and 2009 were looked at extensively by the joint parliamentary committee. The committee in its report has debunked the theory that was put out by the then CAG. There is nothing that Manmohan Singh has to answer for," Tewari said.

While Rai claimed that Congress leaders including Sanjay Nirupam sought to apply pressure on him to keep the former PM's name out of audit reports, Nirupam said that his claims are totally wrong. "I have never spoken to him. I challenge his claims. He is totally wrong," said the Congress leader.

The Congress tore into Vinod Rai, who has sharply criticised Manmohan and also alleged that three party leaders tried to pressure him to keep Dr Singh's name out of his damning reports on spectrum and coal block allocations. Congress leaders Sanjay Nirupam and Sandeep Dikshit threatened legal action if Rai did not withdraw his comments.

Rai, who retired as Comptroller and Auditor General last year, alleges that the former Congress MPs made a "futile attempt" at keeping Dr Singh's name out of his reports.

Denying this, Dikshit, a former MP, said the report was made public in 2010 and he became a member of the Public Accounts Committee after that, "so how can we influence a report I cannot understand. Either he thinks that Sanjay and I are such big fools that we will tell him to change that report which every child of India knows, or his memory is weak and if this is the case, he is confusing us with others then it is fine." "The former PM was in office but not in power. He cannot claim ignorance now," Prakash Javdekar said.