Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. So had Alice down a rabbit hole to reach a phantasmagoric world she truly belonged to. But both their falls had nadirs. There was a thud and it ended. But the UPA government’s fall into the spectrum of the 2G scam is unending. There have been several lows and none the lowest. What began with just the government’s hesitation in auctioning the 2G spectrums towards the end of 2007 is now a full-blown gangrene, which several amputations later is giving the UPA II no less pain.

The government’s fall first saw an erudite prime minister defending his conniving colleague A Raja who later graduated to Tihar Jail. The fall also saw the country’s apex court rapping its PM for his inaction over a request for sanction to prosecute Raja and the attorney general going to the apex court to save the day for the PM.

Even the Romans could not save the day for the PM when he said, “I sincerely believe that like Caesar’s wife, the prime minister should be above suspicion.” The maxim “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion” is traced to Julius Caesar? after he divorced Pompeia, who had been accused of adultery, though there was no evidence of her guilt. It now refers to the ethics expected from people closely related to those in powerful public positions.

A logjam in parliament over opposition’s JPC probe into the scam ensued. The PM said, “not everything that the opposition says is correct” and that his government, while pursuing punitive action against those found guilty of graft, would not give in to the opposition’s demand for a JPC probe. It followed nonetheless and the fall continued. In between were the rise and fall of CVC PJ Thomas (who was actually no more than a PJ propped up by this government to shock people and derail the probe) and lobbyist Niira Radia.

However, the comptroller and auditor general, Vinod Rai, whose pegging of losses in 2G spectrum scam at Rs 1.76 lakh crore drove the last nail in an already sepulchral public mood, turned out to be a pain in the neck (I’ll use the British version of the phrase only) for the government. He remains to be. So, while the Congress leaders never miss an opportunity to take potshots at him, the government as a whole seems to be bang on the job to bring him to book. 

Rai is to appear before the JPC on Tuesday to explain how the CAG arrived at a presumptive loss figure of Rs 1.76 lakh crore and to counter the figure floated by his former auditor RP Singh. Singh who appeared before the JPC on Monday is understood to have stuck to his stand that the presumptive loss in the spectrum allocation was only Rs 2,645 crore and the rest at best can be called a mathematical guess. BJP and other opposition parties are not convinced with Singh’s position on the loss to the exchequer.

If DMK patriarch’s Rajya Sabha member daughter Kanimozhi has not be bailed out of jail because of the fear of her efforts to subvert the probe, take a close look — that’s what this entire government machinery has been busy with. It cannot ever be bailed out as well. A new low is never too far and its fall continues.