Reject JPC draft report: BJP

NDA to rake up 2G scam in ParliamentA

Venkat Parsa

New Delhi: Outraged by JPC draft report portions blaming the Vajpayee government for causing heavy loss to the exchequer by allowing migration package for telecom operators from license-fee regime to revenue-sharing arrangement, NDA working chairman L K Advani called upon all the JPC members to reject the JPC draft report in toto.

Advani said the NDA members of the JPC would attend the JPC meeting on April 25 and firmly and forcefully oppose the draft report. The NDA is confident that after the DMK and Trinamool Congress pulled out of the UPA, numbers are stacked against the UPA in the JPC.

"We were stunned to know from our members in JPC that there are serious allegations made against Atal Behari Vajpayee, Jaswant Singh and Arun Shourie. We felt outraged at this kind of attitude of the UPA government," Advani said. If the government continues to persist with such an attitude, then the BJP will have to reconsider extending cooperation in passing important Bills, warned Advani.

At the NDA meeting at the residence of NDA working chairman L K Advani, it was decided to press for a discussion on coalgate on Monday, when the resumed Budget Session of Parliament commences. The mood in NDA is clearly to make corruption a major plank by focussing attention on 2G Spectrum scam and coalgate.

After the NDA meeting, Advani said, "The NDA collectively and with one voice, totally condemns the manner in which the JPC draft, as per accounts, is charging the former Prime Minister and present NDA chairman A B Vajpayee with knowingly having caused losses to the exchequer. This is utterly and absolutely condemnable. Such conclusions in the draft report of JPC, whilst simultaneously clearing Manmohan Singh's name, through a variety of sleights of hand, is an act of unmatched perfidy."

To charge NDA ministers like Arun Shourie and Jaswant Singh, recognized for their unimpeachable integrity, of wrongdoing, can only be termed as perverse. The NDA came up with some posers for the Congress-led UPA government.

How and why was former Telecom Minister A Raja, the accused, not permitted to appear before the JPC, despite his repeated requests and demands for it from members of the JPC? How have the two principal Ministers of the government, dealing with the matter, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram, been exonerated, without questioning and without any examination by the JPC? How possibly can a Minister of the Cabinet 'mislead' the Prime Minister? Where does the collective responsibility of a government lie? Who actually has drafted this purported JPC Report � the JPC chairman or some proxy of the UPA?