JOIN USThe issue further intensified as the UPA government’s renewed effort to persuade the main opposition BJP to give up its demand for setting up the JPC yielded no result.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday afternoon was learnt to have spoken to senior BJP leaders L K Advani and the Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj and persuaded them to drop their demand for a JPC probe and allow the Parliament to function. “Both the leaders conveyed to Mukherjee that it was not possible to give up the demand for setting up a JPC on the 2G spectrum issue,” BJP sources said.
Ever since the winter session of Parliament began on November 9, both Houses have remained virtually paralysed.
As a result the legislative business of both Houses has remained practically stalled.
Last week witnessed sustained efforts by Mukherjee, who is the key troubleshooter of the Congress, to find a solution. Efforts by Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal to reach out to the Opposition for ending the stalemate also failed.
While the Congress-led UPA government is not all ready to accept the Opposition’s demand, it is sticking to its decision to get the irregularities as detected by the CAG in the 2G spectrum allocation be examined by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament.
The PAC, which comprises elected members from all the political parties in both Houses of Parliament, is currently being headed by senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi.