NEW DELHI, NOV 18
The government-opposition stand-off in parliament showed no signs of resolution tonight with the Congress said to be averse to conceding the demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the 2G spectrum scam.
After both the houses of parliament remained paralysed for the fifth day with opposition insisting on the JPC, the Congress core group including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party chief Sonia Gandhi met to discuss the issue.
There was no official word on the meeting in which some participants expressed their views strongly against yielding to the opposition demand. They felt that giving in to the demand for JPC was fraught with danger as it would lead to opposition clamour for a similar probe on every issue.
Earlier in the day, the party had sent mixed signals that it could consider the demand favourably with a rider that the JPC terms of reference should include licensing from 1998 when the BJP-led NDA had come to power.
“I don’t think that the party will agree to the JPC demand,” a senior Congress leader, who declined to be identified, said after the core group grappled with the issue at an hour-long meeting.
Senior minister and leader of the house in the Lok Sabha, Pranab Mukherjee, who was to get back to the opposition on the government’s stand on their demand, is yet to contact the leaders.
The JPC has become the bone of contention between the government and opposition which has paralysed parliament for the last five days.
Newly-appointed Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal was present in the core group meeting, which was attended among others by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Defence Minister A K Antony, Home Minister P Chidambaram and the Congress president’s Political Secretary Ahmed Patel.
Piling up pressure, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Left parties today asked the prime minister to break his silence on spectrum allocation scam, explain the role of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and accept the opposition demand for a JPC probe.
“The prime minister cannot remain silent anymore on such an important issue. He should accept the demand for a JPC and suggest measures to recover losses and fix responsibility,” BJP president Nitin Gadkari said in Mumbai.
Communist Party of India (Marxist ) said it was absolutely necessary for the prime minister to clear all “charges” vis-a-vis the 2G spectrum allocation and JPC was the best way available before the government.
“Raja has been claiming that all steps regarding the 2G radiowave allocation were taken with the “full knowledge” of the PMO and the Supreme Court has also asked the government to clarify,” CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said here.
“The matter seems to be becoming more and more grave. Against this backdrop, it is absolutely necessary that the prime minister clears himself of all charges and explain the role of PMO before the people and parliament,” he told reporters here.
At a briefing, Congress said the Supreme Court’s remarks questioning the delay on the part of the prime minister in deciding on sanction of prosecution of Raja were not “a stricture by any stretch of imagination”.
“It is not a stricture by any stretch of imagination…the Supreme Court has merely asked for a clarification and the government has said that since the court wants it on an affidavit, it will be filed,” party spokesperson Manish Tewari told reporters here.
Quoting various sections of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), he said Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy, who complained to the PMO over the issue, had not filed any complaint in any court and therefore the question of granting sanction does not arise.
“When a complaint is filed and the court finds it worth proceeding with, question of sanction only arises then,” he said adding it was upto the government to file an affidavit and explain its stand before the apex court.
