2G note fallout: Pranab rushes to NY to meet PM

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has advanced his scheduled visit to New York by a day in order to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh there on Sunday. Singh is in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly session.

The meeting is obviously an attempt to control the fallout from the latest developments in the 2G spectrum scam – where a finance ministry note apparently blames P Chidambaram, then the finance minister, for the cheap sale of spectrum in 2008-09. The two leaders will discuss a strategy to get out of the stink raised by the note.

"I will be reaching (New York) on Saturday night rather than Sunday afternoon (local time) as scheduled," Mukherjee confirmed in Washington, where he is currently. He will take a United Airlines flight to New York tonight and spend the night at the same hotel as the prime minister.

While he did not specify reasons for rescheduling his itinerary, a government official in Delhi reportedly said the reasons were "obvious".

The last-minute decision to tweak Mukherjee's itinerary came on a day the opposition BJP relentlessly continued its attack on the government, targeting the prime minister after he backed Chidambaram, saying the current home minister had his full confidence.

According to a CNN-IBN report citing sources, the prime minister is keen to ensure that his own office does not get caught in the mud-slinging over the latest twist to the spectrum scandal.