The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is set to re-nominate Murli Manohar Joshi as chairman of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) for a consecutive term. The committee is probing the multi-crore 2G spectrum allocation controversy.
The decision was taken during a meeting of the Parliamentary Party of the BJP who met this morning on the issue. The term of the existing PAC is scheduled to come to an end on April 30, after which the party will yet again name Joshi as its chief.
Although senior leader Jaswant Singh was chief of the PAC before Joshi, the party has decided to renominate Joshi. Singh had to quit from the post after he was expelled from the BJP and senior leaders of the party had officially complained to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar that he should be asked to vacate the post. He had continued as PAC chief even after being expelled from the BJP.
Senior leaders of the BJP said that most of the PAC chairmen who were nominated by the BJP, the principal opposition party, in the past had all served for longer period terms of more than one year. BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra was chief before Jaswant Singh. “It has been a norm that a member of the principal Opposition party remains as the PAC chairman for more than one year,” said a senior BJP leader.
