NEW DELHI: The Congress accused former CAG Vinod Rai on Friday of being a conspirator to destabilise the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government and demanded that he apologise to the nation for doing so.
It said Rai stood "exposed" after he tendered an unconditional apology to former Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam for "wrongly mentioning" him as one of the MPs who had pressured him not to name former prime minister Manmohan Singh in the CAG report on 2G spectrum allocation.
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera told reporters here that Rai admitted on Thursday that he had lied in 2014 to Nirupam and apologised to him.
"Imagine a man who can lie to sell a book, what all can he do to push his own agenda and the agenda of his masters," he said.
"We demand that Rai apologise to the entire nation in the same manner in which he unconditionally apologised to Nirupam," Khera said.
He said the former Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) needs to issue an unconditional apology to the country as he owes one "for making a fool of everyone".
Khera said the time has come to undo the wrong done to Singh's government, to the Congress and to the country.
"We are convinced beyond any doubt that this was a massive conspiracy to derail the economy, to discredit a popularly-elected government of Manmohan Singh. We demand an apology from Rai and the other co-conspirators and as far as their master is concerned, people will take care of him very soon.
"We also demand that all those puppets, who were involved in this treason by becoming co-conspirators, should apologise to the country," he said.
Khera said the Congress also demands that Rai return all the facilities given to him as "a reward or remuneration" after his retirement to the government treasury.
He said the media that brandished Rai's image as an honest government officer should also answer today. "If he was honest, why did he offer an unconditional apology through the court to Sanjay Nirupam? Why isn't the media asking those very tough questions to Vinod Rai today?" the Congress leader asked.
He said there are major concerns emerging as a result of these developments and the credibility of all the reports authored by Rai during his tenure as the CAG ought to be questioned as his actions since he demitted office seem to suggest a disturbing trend.
Khera said one should not forget that Rai was associated with the "India against Corruption" movement, the key players of which included Anna Hazare, who has never uttered a single word against the Narendra Modi government, Arvind Kejriwal, who became the chief minister of Delhi, and Kiran Bedi, who was made the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry.
"This clearly shows how the then CAG Vinod Rai had, along with his buddies from the India against Corruption farce movement, orchestrated a criminal conspiracy to destabilise and bring down a constitutionally-elected government that was working for the welfare of the common people, especially the poor and the marginalised," he said.
The Congress leader said the most significant question is, who was the mastermind behind all of this.
"Who hatched the criminal conspiracy to destabilise a democratically-elected government? Who worked hard to derail a sound economy and defame an honest and capable prime minister?" he asked, adding that the CBI gave a clean chit to Singh in the 2G spectrum case and the special CBI court, in its judgment, stated that the prosecution had miserably failed to prove any charge.