Government wants to undercut CAG: Kejriwal

In his latest salvo, activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal has accused the government of conspiring to undermine the office of the Comptroller & Auditor General of India, whose recent reports on telecom licence allocation and private coal mining permits have led to embarrassing allegations of graft for the government.

"The government wants to make CAG its agent," said Kejriwal, whose new political party will be christened on the 26 November.

The charges are based on a report by the Press Trust of India, which quoted minister of state in the prime minister's office V Narayansamy as saying on Sunday that the government is "actively considering" converting the post of the CAG into a three-member committee.

Narayansamy later disowned the remark saying he was misquoted; but PTI said it stood by its report.

The opposition too was quick to latch on to the opportunity. "The Congress has a track record of destroying institutions," said Venkaiah Naidu of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Vinod Rai, the CAG or Comptroller and Auditor General of India, has clashed often and publicly with the government, which has challenged his calculations that the country lost Rs1.76 lakh crore through a faulty telecom policy, and Rs1.86 lakh crore from the opaque allocation of coal blocks.