New Delhi: The Congress party has asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to clarify and come clean about whose orders had led to the fieldwork by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) being stopped.The party’s media department head Pawan Khera in a press conference on alleged irregularities emerging in the office of the topmost auditor of the government in India, CAG, said that the CAG, which had once been used to ‘defame’ the Congress-led UPA, had now been “strangled”.The Times of India reports Congress as saying that “Centre throttling CAG to cover up corruption in its schemes.”The Telegraph cited Congress as saying that a “Bulldozer is being run over the CAG, officers who exposed corruption transferred.”The Wire reported on three transfers, coincidentally, of officers associated with reports on Ayushman Bharat and Bharatmala raising serious questions on the Modi government’s flagship programmes, often pushed in the prime minister’s name.There were news reports on verbal orders being issued to stop all field work. The Wire reported on how in the first week on October, officers had asked for written orders, before calling for all field work to stop. Mystery hung over the Maharashtra Accountant General passing these orders on in a written note. CAG to The Wire denied all allegations of stalling field work. “..It is categorically asserted that no order has been issued by the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, pausing field audit work,” the email response to The Wire had said on October 16.“Why were audit officers documenting CAG report(s) given orders to ‘stop all fieldwork’ and under whose instructions? Is the PMO or the home ministry directly interfering in the functioning of the CAG?” Khera asked.एक के बाद एक CAG की रिपोर्ट्स मोदी सरकार के अलग-अलग मंत्रालयों में घोटालों की गवाही दे रही हैं।लेकिन अब तो CAG को लेकर भाजपा की ‘राय’ ही बदल गई है और The Nation Wants to Know वाला जागरूक मिडिया भी चुप्पी साधे है। pic.twitter.com/HwHLyJCGYp— Pawan Khera 🇮🇳 (@Pawankhera) October 21, 2023The Telegraph reported on Khera recalling that the current CAG, Girish Chandra Murmu, has served as the principal secretary to Modi when he was Gujarat chief minister. He was later appointed as the lieutenant governor of the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.Alleging that Murmu was not clearing new reports, Khera enquired: “Has he stopped signing the files due to pressure from the big two at the helm of affairs?”Khera said the CAG’s autonomy had been crippled over the years.Twelve reports from CAG tabled in the monsoon session of Parliament made the BJP uncomfortable as they raised serious questions on financial and other irregularities in union government ministries and departments.You can read The Wire’s series on the 12 reports here, here and here.CAG reports have been of special interest after the UPA government came under fire for the “2G” and “coal block allocation scam” – which were revealed when Vinod Rai was the CAG, and which had deleterious consequences on the UPA’s credibility.