'2G: Manmohan Singh should have stepped down, apologised'

Former finance minister P Chidambaram admitted that the UPA government could have handled the 2G spectrum allocation case better. He added that former prime minister Manmohan Singh should have steeped down.

"The CAG report on 2G and other issues," Chidambaram said, "clearly ...hurt the Congress party. I think 2G could have been handled differently in the sense that the Prime Minister could have put his foot down and said I am sorry, I will not let you go forward with the first come first serve (FCFS) route.

"Or after licences had been granted and issue was brought up, he could have said cancel licences without waiting for the judgement. It hurt us. My personal view was once this came out as a scandal of bandwidth allotment, the government should have cancelled all the licences without waiting for the Supreme Court (judgement)."

On why the then government did not cancel the licences, Chidambaram said the decision was taken to wait for the court verdict. "The decision was taken to wait for the Court verdict. These are the matters which do not come to the Cabinet. These are ideas which are discussed informally.

"I think the idea as suggested and considered. I always believed it was a pretty simple decision rather than suffer any judgement and then try to work out consequent."

(With additional information from PTI)