Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday hit out at allegations leveled by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy on yet another top-ranking Finance Minister official.
“An unfair and false attack on a disciplined civil servant in the Finance Ministry,” said the Finance Minister in a tweet. Though Jaitley did not take the name of the officer, it is perceived as a reference to Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das.
Swamy had accused Das of property deals during the tenure of former Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
“I think there a property deal case pending against him for assisting PC swallow Mahabalipuram prime locations,” Swamy had tweeted in reply to another tweet.
The Finance Minister’s swift rebuttal came a day after he also defended Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian from allegations levelled by Swamy.
After his month long attack on Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan, Swamy had also sought removal of Subramanian on the grounds.
However, on Wednesday Jaitley had asserted that the government has “full confidence” in Subramanian.
His defence was also welcomed by bureaucrats who have been worried about accusations being hurled at them too.
“Civil servants have welcomed strong defence by Finance Minister. Too often silence of dedicated officers interpreted as weakness,” tweeted Neelam Kapur, Principal Director General, Directorate of Field Publicity.
In the corridors of power in the Capital, many other senior officials had in the last few weeks feeling the heat of Swamy’s comments even though they were not levelled at them. Apart from government business, much of the discussions in ministries were focussed on the truth and propriety of his allegations.
“It is simply not done. You can question the professional integrity of a bureaucrat but not his personal values,” said an official.
But many others felt that Subramanian should not be taken seriously. “Work must go on. What one individual says, should not impact the whole Government of India,” said a senior official, noting that Rajan’s decision to not seek a second term at the RBI was probably independent of Swamy’s charges.