New Delhi: The Joint Parliamentary Committee will meet on Friday to adopt its controversial draft report on the 2G spectrum allocation case which gives a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram. Sources said, the Janata Dal United which was earlier opposed to the draft, may abstain. Sources also said the DMK and CPM will vote against the resolution. The draft resolution indicts former telecom minister A Raja in the case. Sources said the report alleged that A Raja misled the Prime Minister. The NCP had scaled down its demand for calling A Raja as a witness. The UPA ally has said it did not wish to make calling Raja as a witness an issue.
It is the opinion of the party. We have registered our opinion to the JPC. But we do not wish to make it into an issue. We have told the committee our stand,” the sole NCP member in the panel YP Trivedi said.The Congress hoped that the Bahujan Samaj Party with two members and the Samajwadi Party with one member will side with UPA. But the two parties have not yet made their stand clear.The Opposition was likely to press for a vote for the adoption of the report. If the JD(U) members remain absent, then UPA with 11 members and three from BSP and SP would muster 14 votes in the 30-member panel which will in that case have an effective strength of 28.
The Opposition had recently slammed the government for nominating Rajya Sabha member Ashok S Ganguly alleging he would support the UPA in the panel and tilt the balance. The opposition camp has BJP (6), BJD (1), TMC (1), CPI (1), CPI-M (1), DMK (1) and AIADMK (1). The JPC has 20 members from Lok Sabha and 10 from Rajya Sabha. The panel has not been able to meet for a host of reasons since April when the draft report was circulated to the members. The term of the JPC was recently extended till the end of the Winter Session of Parliament. This was the sixth extension to the JPC set up in March, 2011.
Bureau Report
Leave a Reply