Caught between a rock and a hard place in the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the 2G spectrum scam, the Congress is trying to persuade as many members as it can to abstain from voting so that it can avoid a defeat.
When the JPC was set up two years ago with two members from Trinamool Congress (TMC) and two from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the Congress was confident of pushing through a report that it favoured.
However, now with these four MPs having left the United Progressive Alliance, the combine’s strength in the 30-member committee has come down to 12 — 11 Congress MPs and one from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). With the Samajwadi Party giving a leeway to the Opposition — party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav recently said former telecom minister A Raja should have been given a hearing — the Congress’s best bet is to get as many MPs as it can to abstain, so that it can win the numbers game in a smaller JPC.
A target in this effort is also the TMC. It was after a meeting between Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath and TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee that the final sitting of the JPC was called off on the ground that a TMC MP, Ambika Banerjee, had died.
The House had already adjourned after obituary references and there was no justification to call off a meeting of the JPC. However, the TMC helped the government by seeking adjournment of the JPC meeting — immediately after the parliamentary affairs minister had held discussions with the party’s representative in the JPC. The opposition parties want to keep the pressure on JPC chairman P C Chacko so that they can somehow prevent him from using his prerogative of the casting vote.
In an interview to CNN-IBN’s programme, Devil’s Advocate, Chacko said he might have resigned if 15 opposition MPs had asked him to, but he would not resign because they had complained to the Speaker about him. Nor would he permit a no-confidence motion to be passed against him.
He told the interviewer, Karan Thapar, the final meeting of the JPC will be held before the term of the panel ends on May 10. He said he was in no way responsible for leaking the report to the media and said only three or four members asked for the deposition of the prime minister and the finance minister, which could not be construed as a unanimous demand to deviate from a tradition of parliamentary committees — that ministers are not summoned before them.
Meanwhile, in a bid to end the confrontation in the JPC, Chacko today expressed willingness to consider amendments to the controversial draft report on the 2G spectrum scam which gave a clean chit to the prime minister and the finance minister.
