An internal discussion meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probing the 2G telecom spectrum scam saw a major showdown between members of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Opposition. Opposition parties demanded Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former telecom minister
A Raja and Home Minister P Chidambaram be summoned as witnesses in the investigation into the 2G spectrum allocation scam.
Though Congress party members felt the JPC should start the process of preparing the draft final report, as all documents related to the allocation were available with the parliamentary committee, BJP members demanded more witnesses be called by the JPC to get a complete picture of the scam. Opposition members also demanded the summoning of PM’s advisor T K A Nair, principal secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office Pulok Chatterji, former Cabinet secretary K M Chandrashekhar, Reserve Bank of India Governor D Subbarao and Attorney General G E Vahanvati before the JPC.
During the course of the discussion, BJP members argued for more witnesses to be called by the JPC. To this, Congress party leader J P Agarwal said the BJP leaders were delaying the process of preparation of the draft report, keeping in mind the next general elections. The Congress party members said the Opposition was deliberately trying to delay the JPC’s work so that it could use the 2G probe as an election issue.
While BJP leaders demanded the prime minister be summoned, Congress party members brought their own list of witnesses. This included the names of Sushma Swaraj, Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Jagmohan and Arun Shourie.
Though the meeting remained inconclusive, JPC Chairman Chacko decided to bring out a detailed list of witnesses given by all the members in the next meeting. JPC members also agreed to meet every Tuesday to question the witnesses and work on finalising the report.
