After meeting Sonia, Chidambaram offers to resign: Reports

Agencies

New Delhi, 26 September 2011:  Home minister P. Chidambaram offered to resign on Monday, September 26, 2011, television channel CNN-IBN reported citing unnamed sources, after a document emerged that suggested he failed to stop a multi-billion dollar scam over telecoms contracts. 

 

Menawhile, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who returned home Monday from his US trip, did not comment on the controversy created by his ministry’s note on 2G spectrum allocation. 

 

Mukherjee, who is likely to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi Monday evening, indicated that he would hold a press conference to clear the air about the note on the 2G spectrum sent by his ministry to the Prime Minister’s Office. 

"Whatever I had to say, I said yesterday (Sunday). I have nothing to add," Mukherjee told reporters at Delhi airport. 

 

Mukherjee said he will address "a full-fledged press conference" after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh returns from the US Tuesday. However, he later added that press conference will be held, if needed. 

 

Congress sources said Mukherjee is likely to meet Gandhi Monday evening to apprise her of his meting with the prime minister in New York in the wake of the controversy created by his ministry’s note, which has sparked renewed demand for resignation of Home Minister P. Chidambaram. 

 

The note to the PMO from the finance ministry says that the airwaves could have been auctioned in 2008 if Chidambaram, who was then the finance minister, had "stuck to his stand".

 

Mukherjee, who was in Washington for IMF and World Bank meetings, met Manmohan Singh Sunday for nearly an hour. 

 

Following the meeting, Mukherjee Sunday said Chidambaram was a "valued colleague". 

 

Mukherjee also said he would comment on the issue only after talking to Chidambaram, Law Minister Salman Khurshid and other party leaders.