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The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has appealed to all members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee to reject the draft report on the alleged 2G spectrum allocation scam.
Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA, who met at the residence of senior BJP leader L K Advani, also demanded an inquiry into how the report was “selectively leaked to media” even before it had reached the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) members.
In a veiled threat to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) for targeting BJP’s former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and two former ministers, Jaswant Singh and Arun Shourie, in the draft report of JPC, another senior BJP leader said NDA’s approach would now be different when the government seeks the Opposition’s support for the passage of crucial Bills.
Senior NDA leaders said they would consult other opposition members and also some of the alliance partners of the UPA to convince them to reject the report completely.
“We are outraged to see the report. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) didn’t not find any wrong doing on the part of NDA minister Arun Shourie and Jaswant Singh, but JPC has blamed them for causing loss to the Union government. JPC draft report also blames Atal Bihari Vajpayee at a time when he is not keeping well for a very long time. This report violates all norms of decency,” said Advani.
He pointed out while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram were exonerated even without questioning or any examination by the JPC, former telecom minister A Raja was blamed for all the loss but was not allowed to appear before the parliamentary committee to present his case even after repeated appeals made to JPC chairperson P C Chacko.
“We have resolved to oppose this report and all members should reject it. There were times when some BJP members in JPC wanted to quit, but we stayed to see what kind of report will be prepared. We didn’t think the report would be unbiased. (But) this report has shocked us,” Advani added.
Senior BJP leaders have also decided to raise the issue of coal scam and allegations that senior officials at the Prime Minister’s Office had tried to interfere in the CBI report.
