All-party meeting fails to end House deadlock

Speaker upset, to continue attempts to end impasse

The BJP-led NDA and other opposition parties continued to insist on a probe by the Joint Parliamentary Committee into the 2G scam. The Congress-led UPA Government on the other hand remained firm on its stand and rejected the demand for the JPC probe.

The Parliament continued to remain paralysed for the 13th consecutive day, with the BJP and other opposition parties disrupting the proceedings in both the Houses, leading to their adjournments – first till noon, and then, on reassembly, for the rest of the day.

The Speaker, however, said that she was not disappointed with the outcome of the meet and would continue to make attempts to end the logjam.

Nearly 80 MPs of the leftist parties, the TDP, the AIADMK, the JD (S), the MDMK, the BJD and the RLD on Tuesday marched towards the Rashtrapati Bhavan and submitted a memorandum to President Pratibha Patil requesting her to intervene and ask the Government to accept the demand for a JPC probe.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is also the Leader of the House in Lok Sabha, told the opposition leaders in the all-party meet that the demand for setting up a JPC to probe the alleged scam in 2G allocation was unacceptable to the Government. He reiterated the Government’s offers – a multi-disciplinary inquiry along with a review by the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report on 2G allocation, or a probe by the CBI under the guidance and monitoring by the Supreme Court.

Mukherjee had made the same offers earlier also – when he had two meetings with the leaders of the BJP and other opposition parties to end the deadlock.  Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, said that the stalemate continued as the Government just reiterated the old offers. “The stalemate continues, as the  Government just reiterated that it would not accept our demand for a JPC probe and made offers, which we had rejected already,” she said. Swaraj later rubbished reports about chinks in opposition unity.