Pranab differs on PM appearing before PAC

KOLKATA, JAN 2
Pranab Mukherjee, the senior-most member of the Union Cabinet, today caused a flutter in political circles by openly disagreeing with Prime Minister Mammohan Singh’s offer to appear before the PAC in the 2G spectrum scam, saying that the decision had been taken “without consulting us”.
The finance minister, who is also leader of the Lok Sabha, said that the prime minister was accountable to the Lok Sabha and “not to any committee”.
“The prime minister’s offer to appear before the PAC was a decision taken by him without consulting us. If he had discussed it with me I would have advised him not to offer to appear before the PAC,” Mukherjee told a special meeting of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee here.
 “Constitutionally, the prime minister is accountable to the Lok Sabha and not to any committee,” Mukherjee said on Singh’s letter to the PAC chairman Murli Manohar Joshi on December 27 offering to appear before the panel.
Mukherjee has been the principal negotiator for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in its efforts to break the logjam over the opposition demand for the constitution of a Joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to probe into in the 2G scam but his repeated parleys with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other parties have not achieved any breakthrough.
He has demanded an apology from the opposition, accusing it of “destroying” parliament after they rejected his offer of a special session to discuss the JPC issue. The month-long winter session of parliament had been a wash out over the JPC demand.
Meanwhile, Mukherjee today described as hypothetical a question on bringing ordinance “right now” to tackle corruption and said no ordinance has been issued yet.
“You people are asking a question which is totally hypothetical. There is no ordinance right now,” Mukherjee told reporters responding to a question after a State Congress party meeting here.
“Therefore let the ordinance come. Some newspapers have made some stories that there may be an ordinance. No ordinance has yet been issued. I do not know if in my absence on Sundayand Saturday it has been issued. Otherwise, to my knowledge up to Friday, no ordinance was issued,” he said.