Matter regarding Chidambaram should be allowed to rest: Congress

Buoyed by the trial court verdict, Congress on Saturday said the matter regarding Home Minister P Chidambaram's alleged involvement in 2G scam should be allowed to rest and asked the BJP to apologise to the nation for the "vilification" campaign.

Party spokesperson Manish Tewari said Bharatiya Janata Party owes an "apology" to the the nation for the "campaign of calumny, vilification and innuendo" in the matter.

He stressed that there is nothing at all in the 2G matter for the government to be ashamed of or take moral responsibility.

"Now that both courts have spoken, the Supreme Court and the trial court on substantively the same issue, the matter should be allowed to rest," Tewari said when asked whether

Congress considers that the trial court order has given a clean chit to Chidambaram, the former finance minister.

Attacking BJP and other opposition parties over the issue, he said," Political parties especially the BJP, owe an apology to the nation for the unlimiting campaign of calumny, vilification and innuendo, which they have carried out over the past one year."

Tewari also rejected contentions that the party should take moral responsibility for the handling of 2G allocation.

"There is nothing at all, which the government has to be ashamed of. There is nothing for which we have to take moral responsibility...If at all there has been an indictment; it has been of the process.

"In so far as policy is concerned, the court has pronounced on the policy of the first cum first served (FCFS), which was put in place by National Democratic Alliance. The court has not said a single word about the so-called estimated loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore, which was being talked about for last one year," Tewari said.