Hardening its stand on the current stalemate in Parliament, the Congress has not only ruled out a compromise formula on a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the 2G spectrum scam but also turned down a judicial probe into it.
Congress managers today held a meeting with the allies of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in a show of unity and strength and came out with a unanimous resolution that a JPC was not acceptable.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main Opposition, will hold a strategy session on how to intensify its protest, while the non-UPA, non-NDA parties have sought time from President Pratibha Patil to ask her to “advise” her government to accept a JPC.
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar will meet various political leaders tomorrow in an attempt to resolve the stalemate. But even the back-channel negotiations between the government and the Opposition have failed so far.
Parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal has also ruled out an abrupt end to the current Winter Session, which is slated to run till December 13.
As the UPA-Opposition tussle continues, CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta held a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week. The meeting was aimed to convey to the PM that it was not the prime minister that the Opposition was targeting. At the meeting, according to Dasgupta, the PM said the Opposition should not try to denigrate the office of the prime minister.
Dasgupta told PM that the terms of reference of the JPC could be drafted in such a way that the probe would not reach the Prime Minister’s Office. “If we agree on something like ‘failure of the telecom ministry to give licences in a transparent manner and the consequent loss to the exchequer’, then PMO will not come into the picture,” Dasgupta told Business Standard.
Meanwhile, UPA’s chief troubleshooter and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee also ruled out any judicial probe — a step seen as a compromise between the two warring sides earlier — in the 2G scandal. In his talks with various Opposition leaders during the weekend, Mukherjee stuck to his stand and asked the Opposition to criticise the government but allow the Houses to run.
After the meeting of the UPA allies today, Bansal said in a statement: “The Public Accounts Committee has begun its deliberations on the CAG report and the government has gone further and offered that if required, the services of a multi-disciplinary investigating team with agencies could also be provided.”
