Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday sought to douse the week-long raging fire ignited by a finance ministry note, distancing himself from the blame on P Chidambaram in the 2G spectrum controversy and pacifying the sulking home minister who said the "matter is closed".
The truce came at the intervention of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a day of hectic activities to quell apparent tensions between the two senior ministers that had put the government in bad light.
"Apart from the factual background, the paper contains certain inferences and interpretations which do not reflect my views," Mukherjee said reading out a brief statement with Chidambaram standing by his side outside the North Block office of the finance ministry.
The joint appearance of the two ministers along with Kapil Sibal and Salman Khurshid came after Mukherjee and Chidambaram jointly met the prime minister where the matter was thrashed out.
Immediately, Chidambaram expressed happiness over Mukherjee's statement and said, "I accept the statement and as far as all of us in the government is concerned, the matter is closed."
After these statements, Gandhi met the prime minister at his residence for over half an hour.
Chidambaram had been sulking for last one week ever since the surfacing of a finance ministry note of March 25 that had said that the 2G scam could have been avoided had the then finance minister insisted on auctioning of spectrum instead of giving it on 2001 prices.
Mukherjee described the note as an "inter-ministerial background paper" prepared by "a group of officers".
Giving a background to it, he said, "A number of stories on 2G spectrum had appeared in the media in January 2011 (and) a view was taken that a harmonised note based on facts should be produced for use by various representatives of the government."
He went on to add that the policy of the government in 2007-08 was continuation of the policy adopted in October 2003 and reiterated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
A visibily satisfied Chidambaram said: "I am happy about the statement made by my senior and distinguished colleague and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. I accept his statement.”
As there was growing feeling within the party that matter was going too far because of ego clash, Gandhi stepped in. She held confabulations with senior leaders AK Antony and Ahmed Patel and then met Mukherjee.
Later, Mukherjee and Chidambaram met the prime minister on his return from Sikkim when the two ministers came face to face for the first time since the controversy erupted.
Just ahead of this meeting, Law Minister Salman Khurshid and MoS in the PMO V Narayanasamy met Chidambaram.
"All is well. Don't worry," Khurshid said after their 20-minute meeting with Chidambaram.
Indications of truce emerged when Chidambaram went to the office of Mukherjee in North Block.
Later at night, a number of senior ministers and Congress leaders met at the party 'war room'.
